In the Kitchen With Mattie

Archive for July, 2010

The weather over the next few days is going to over 100 degrees here and is supposed to stay there for a while. When it gets that hot I look for things to make for dinner that satisfy and yet don’t heat up the house even more than usual. Tonight as the sun went down I started mixing up some dough to make a few rolls that we could have decent sandwichs on just in case the heats gets to me too much and I really don’t feel like cooking. I noticed that because it is so hot and humid out that I had to add more flour to my normal recipe for these rolls. I topped the with different things to give us some variety, some have caraway seeds, some have dehydrated onions that I reconstitute before putting them on the dough and others have a mix of Italian spices. When they are all cooled off well I will wrap most of them and put them in the freezer, they defrost quickly on the counter in the southern heat.

 The crust on these is slightly crispy but the interior is nice and soft and light so you’re not stuffed when you eat a nice sandwich on them, unless of course you go a little overboard with the filling you choose.

                                        My Sandwich Rolls

1 medium potato, boiled and mashed or put thru ricer, cooled

4 tablespoons butter

1 large egg

3 tablespoons honey

1 cup water

1 cup milk

4-5 cups flour (depending on humidity in your area)

2 teaspoons salt

2 teaspoons yeast, you can use less for a longer rise time

I use a DLX or Bosch mixer depending on my mood the day I am baking, tonight I used the DLX, I haven’t ever tried to do this in my old KitchenAid mixer.

Add all the ingredients, except the flour and salt to the mixer bowl and mix together for 1 minute until they are all combined. When they are all combined start adding the flour by the half cupfuls until you have added half of it, stop the machine and let the mixture sit for 10 minutes to hydrate the flour. After the rest turn the machine back on and add the salt and again start adding the rest of the flour until the dough is no longer sticky, you may not need all of the flour, the dough should feel slightly tacky but shouldn’t stick to your hands. When you reach the tacky stage remove the dough to a buttered large bowl and turn over so the whole dough is coated with the butter, cover with a towel and let it rise in a warm place until it is almost doubled in size. When it is about doubled remove it to the counter and shape your rolls however you like, coat with one egg mixed with 2 tablespoons of water, brush the egg on the shaped rolls and then sprinkle with your toppings, slash the tops, cover them with the towel for 30-45 minutes to allow them to rise again and then bake for 25-30 minutes at 375 degrees. Place on rack to cool and never wrap them while they are still warm. Enjoy them with your favorite lunch meats and cheeses.

A few years ago on one of my road trips I came accross this package in a store and picked up a few of them. I can’t remember what store it was in or in what state that was, back then I was doing lots of driving and stopping along the way into local shops and such was my rest time. When I got home here and was making a roast one night I discovered that I was out of my home made beef broth that I usually have in the freezer and decided to try one of these cubes in the liquid the roast was cooking in. WOW!  What a flavor the gravy had that night!  Not thinking that this simple bouillon cube could have contributed all that flavor I cooked our next roast the way I normally did with some home made stock and that night the deep intense beefy flavor was somewhat dull. On the third roast we had I once again added this simple cube and BANG the great depth of tasty beef was back.  Now I am a good cook and I make mostly all of the stocks we use here for sauces, soups and gravies but this bouillon is something special and I wanted to have it on hand, I had a problem finding it and I still haven’t found it in any local places but thanks to my mentioning on a group I belong to one of the posters found it on Amazon.com and I have now ordered a pack of six canisters of this at a great price. If you see this in a local store do yourself a favor and pick up a pack to give it a try on any beef you are braising, the taste will knock your socks off. I have always sought out Maggi products and used them, perhaps because I remember my grandmother using some of them when I was young but mostly because I love the flavor they add to lots of different foods.

UPDATE:

This is the way I have now ordered it from Amazon.com, it came in a pack of six canisters, each weighing 7.9 ounces, they have a shaker type top on them which makes using them easy. I have to admit I ordered 12 of them, I will share them with the boys and show them the wonders of what Maggi products can do for the foods they make. When I bought the original package I paid almost $2 for the few cubes, the pack of six shakers cost me $12.37 on Amazon and shipping was free because I had also ordered a book I had been wanting for quite awhile. If you order from there and also sign up to have them auto shipped (anywhere from 1-6 month interval) the price dropped to $10.51 and the shipping was automatically free for the auto shipped product. The burgers I made last night and added this too has a great taste to them, hubby and I both loved them. I will rub all of our steaks and beef roasts with this now that I have a nice supply of it. Later this week I want to make a beef and barley soup and you can be sure this will be in it too. I hope you find it locally in your area and give it a try for anything beef you are making, I think you’ll be happy with the added flavor it imparts.

The heat has been brutal down here in the deep south and they are saying it will get even worse. I would be quite content with a nice large salad and some grilled chicken for dinner but hubby likes to have something more substantial and I like making things he likes. It’s days like these that make me so happy to have my pressure cookers, they drastically cut down on the time it takes to prepare dinner and therefore the heat generated in the house by cooking. Tonight was so hot that even hubby didn’t want anything too heavy but I already had defrosted the meat for this so I went ahead and cooked it in my digital pressure cooker, tonight I also did not thicken up the liquid in the dish to try and keep it a little lighter than it normally is, it worked, the broth was very flavorful and yet it didn’t “stick to your ribs” as they say. The best part was by using my rice cooker and the digital pressure cooker I made dinner in under a half hour and the kitchen didn’t get even hotter than normal in this weather.

                                                      Beef Strips in Gravy

1-2 pounds of steak, cut thin into strips, trim off all fat

1-2 large onions diced small

1 shallot diced fine

1 Maggi Beef Rib  boullion cube

1/4 teaspoon pepper

3 tablespoons all purpose flour

1/2 cup red wine, optional

1  cup water or beef broth

2 tablespoons oil

Toss the beef strips with the flour and set the pressure cooker to the browning setting, add the oil and when it is hot add the beef strips (in batches if need be) and saute them until they brown a little. When all the beef is browned add the onions and shallot and saute them for a few minutes until they start to wilt a little. Add the wine (if using) and let it cook until it is reduced by about half. Add the boullion cube and 1 cup of water and the pepper and close the cover on the pressure cooker, set the pressure to low and the timer to 8 minutes. When the timer rings on the cooker let the pressure release on it’s own and when it is all the way down open the cooker and if you want to thicken up the gravy set the cooker to browning mode again and mix 2 tablespoons of flour into 1/4 cup of water and when the liquid is boiling in the cooker add the flour mixture to the liquid and boil and stir for about 5 minutes to cook off the raw flour taste. Serve over rice or with some potatoes. This is a nice quick dinner utilizing the fast preparation of the pressure cooker, it works very well in this extremely hot weather we have been having all over the country this year.

I used  some top round meat for this and normally it dries out in the cooking process but by using the low pressure setting and the short cook time this meat came out tender and not dried out at all. If you haven’t tried your pressure cooker on the low pressure program give it a try, you may have to add a few minutes to the cook time but it has so far resulted in roasts that aren’t dried out and hard to cut, the meats have all come out very tender and they slice very nice instead of falling apart like I normally get when I used the cookers. Another tip is to use the natural pressure release when the meat is finished cooking, it helps keep all the moisture in the meat, just let the cooker come back down to no pressure on its own, it adds a few minutes to your cooking but the rewards of moist, tender meals are worth it in my opinion.

Hubby loves cheesecake, not a store purchased but but the one I make for him. I’ve been making it for him now for almost 40 years and he really enjoys it but it is very rare for him to ask for it. He seems to think he shouldn’t request me to make anything for him, his reasoning is he doesn’t want me to spend time in a hot kitchen on his account, he doesn’t seem to get it that I like spending time in a kitchen and it is relaxing to me. I stayed up last night and made this after he went to sleep, I stayed up because it is hot down south at this time of year and I didn’t want to heat up the house anymore during daylight hours so I wanted to bake it after he was sleeping, plus I wanted to surprise him with a treat for dinner tonight. He got two of his favorites tonight, the cheesecake and some chicken parmesan, he was a really happy guy at dinnertime! This is NOT a light cheesecake, it is heavy and creamy and dense so I don’t make it too often, it improves with age if it lasts more than a few days in the fridge.

                                                 Cheesecake

3 pounds Philadelphia Cream Cheese, room temperature

2 jumbo eggs

1 cup  sugar

1 tablespoon pure vanilla, I use a vanilla paste

1 1/2 cups of sour cream

1/4 pound butter, melted and cooled

3 tablespoons all purpose flour

topping of your choice

Put cream cheese in a large bowl and add eggs one at a time, mixing with a hand mixer or stand mixer until well combined. Add sugar and continue mixing until incorporated, add butter, flour and vanilla and mix well. Finally add sour cream and mix just until incorporated, you don’t want an airy batter, you just want it well mixed, I mix it all together on low-medium speed.Wrap the bottom of a 9 or 10 inch springform pan with a layer of plastic wrap and then one of foil, fill with the batter, place into a roasting pan and pour boiling water into the roasting pan to come 1/3-1/2 up the side of the springform pan, bake at 350 degrees for 1 hour, turn oven off but leave cake in with the oven door ajar for another hour. Remove from oven and wrap well with foil and place in fridge, let set for at least 8 hours, remove sides from pan and decorate the top with any fruit of your choice and serve.

Here are some pictures of the rest of tonights dinner…………….

When it is hot out you still need to prepare a dinner for your family, none of us I don’t think stop eating just because the temperature rises although we might wish we could! Sometimes it is too hot to stand outside and cook on the grill too, or we may not have access to a grill if we live in an apartment or co-op that doesn’t allow them. When the temps soar I look for things to make that won’t have me turning on the oven too much or spending too much time in my HOT kitchen. We don’t have central air conditioning and we live in the south about 20 miles from the Gulf of Mexico………to say at times it gets really hot here is an understatement! Tonight I made some pork tenderloins, fifteen minutes in a saute pan and they are done, the potatoes took the longest as I made fresh ones but even they only took about 20 minutes. If I manage to get in and out of my hot kitchen in under 30 minutes I consider that great when it is sooooo hot and humid. I know we could go out to eat but then what about the cost of doing that so often, plus is there anyplace near you that doesn’t serve mostly fast food? We do have some good local restaurants that we like but again, at the cheapest they would cost us about $25-30 for a meal each day if we went that route, I don’t know about all my readers here but I do know that we could not afford to do that. The other options are the typical fast food chains and they are not great for your health if you eat a steady diet of that kind of stuff. So tonight I made the pork tenderloins that I picked up yesterday at Sams, there were two packs of two tenderloins packaged together, I froze one two pack and we had the other for dinner tonight and hubby will have it for lunch at work tomorrow, forgot the middle son also came by and had some. If our son had not come by we would have had enough leftovers for another meal but we enjoy having him come by for a meal……….he figures he is just stopping by to check on “the old folks” but we know it is more for some of moms cooking! So for the four tenderloins we paid a little under $14, that breaks down to about $7 worth of it for tonights dinner for three and hubbys lunch tomorrow, not bad in my book at all.

     The meat was taken out of the fridge about an hour before I planned to cook it and was seasoned and allowed to warm up a little. The seasoning is something an old employer of mine used to use and we love it, you just sprinkle it on whatever you wish and it adds a lot of flavor, you can’t get much simpler than that, you don’t have to sit a figure out what seasoning goes with another and you don’t have to worry about dinner being too bland, this one seasoning does it all with just a shake of the jar! We haven’t found anything it hasn’t enhanced the flavor of but you do need to be aware and use it sparingly, also shake the jar before each use as the spices tend to sink to the bottom and using it without shaking it might give you a salt overload. There is no place locally that sells this so if you can’t find it in any of your markets either then there is always Amazon, they have just about everyting anyone is looking for. Here is a picture of the jar it comes in, it is made in Italy and I think if you try it you will be amazed that something so simple can make your food taste so good, but that’s just my opinion, everyones tastes vary and you might not be as enthused as me about it.

So tonight as I said I made fresh mashed potatoes that were boiled for 15 minutes then whipped with some heavy cream, sour cream and butter. The spinach was just chopped finely and steamed. The meat was cooked, after seasoning, in a saute pan over medium heat for 10 minutes. See simple and yet a great dinner. The gravy was some I had frozen form our last pork dinner and was heated in the pan I sauteed the tenderloins in after they had been removed and place aside to rest before being sliced, I brought the gravy to a rolling boil to make sure it was nice and hot for the meat and potatoes. I was planning on making some fresh rolls too but it was so hot and humid today I gave that idea up, I didn’t want to have to turn on the oven at all.

 I hope that wherever you are it is cooler than it is here! If not think about cooking some shorter prep and cook time items for your dinners too.