It’s a drippy, rainy, gray kind of day here in IndiUcky, and I found myself craving something sweet, and thought I’d do some baking.  This is more of a fall recipe, but today just felt right for this particular piece of comfort food.  I hide a teeny bit of nutrition in here with the wheat flour, oats, and fruit, but I’m not going to lie and say that this is a healthy snack.

Oatmeal Fruit Bars

Ingredients:

3/4 cup butter
1 cup packed brown sugar
1/2 cup granulated sugar or 1/4 cup honey

1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
Cloves to taste
Cinnamon to taste
Ginger to taste
Nutmeg to taste
1 3/4 cups whole wheat flour
2 cups rolled oats

1/2 cup chopped nuts – optional
3/4 to 1 cup of fresh blueberries, washed and drained thoroughly.  Frozen can be substituted, but must be completely thawed
1 granny smith apple, peeled, cored, cut into eighths, and then sliced into 1/4 inch slices.

Cream the butter in a bowl until it becomes light colored and fluffy.  Add brown sugar and white sugar/honey, egg, apple juice, and vanilla.  Mix thoroughly.  In another bowl, combine baking powder, baking soda, cloves, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, and flour.  Add to wet ingredients and mix thoroughly.  Add oats and optional nuts.  Mix well.   Fold in fruit. Do not mix so much that the blueberries break open and stain the dough purple.  Resulting dough should somewhere between cookie dough and cake batter in consistency.  If it is too thin, add more oats.  If it is too thick, add more apple juice.

Put dough in a greased 6 x 6 inch baking dish.  Put into a pre-heated 375 degree oven for 45 to 60 minutes, or until a knife put into the center of the dish comes out hot and clean.  Allow to cool before slicing and serving.

Yesterday I had planned on smoking one of the HUGE Boston butts we got at the meat counter a couple of months ago and froze, but the weather sucked the zub kebir.  So I threw it in the crockpot with onions, bourbon, and spices, and served it pulled and barbecue-sauced with Irish Woman’s favorite vegetable, corn and green beans cooked with salty pork product, and mashed potatoes.

Of course, since there’s no way that we could eat an entire pork shoulder roast, I had three quarters of it left, along with quite a bit of corn and green beans.  Today was filled up with housework, laundry, and yard work, so I made something that’s easy to prepare in the crockpot.  I decided to make my rendition of burgoo, which is a local soup that is basically some variation of “Take all the leftovers from the barbecue and make soup out of them”.

Ingredients:

1 to 2 pounds of barbecued, shredded meat. This can be pork, beef, chicken, turkey, sausage, or whatever.  Bonus points for using several different types of meat.
1 small can diced tomatoes with chilis.  Dice up and add your own chilis if you want.
1/4 cup dried onions
1 12 ounce bottle of your favorite barbecue sauce
1/2 cup of your favorite whiskey to add smokey flavor
4 to 6 cups of assorted vegetables, fresh or frozen.
2 cups dry white rice
4 cups water

Thoroughly shred the meat and put in the crockpot along with the onions, barbecue sauce, bourbon, and tomatoes.  Put on low heat for 6 to 8 hours, stirring occasionally.  2 hours before dinner, add the vegetables.  I thoroughly drained the leftover corn and green beans, and added a small package of frozen mixed vegetables.  1 hour before dinner, combine the rice and water in a covered saucepan and bring to a boil.  When the rice boils, shut off the heat and let the rice absorb the water.  Once the rice has absorbed all of the water, mix it into the stock and vegetables.  Let set for 10 to 20 minutes, then serve with fresh baked bread or biscuits.

If you want it a little thicker and a little more authentic, add some okra with the vegetables.  If you don’t care for okra, you can cut the amount of water for the rice down to 1 1/2 cups, and let it set in the stock for a little longer to finish cooking.  If you want to up the amount of heat, adding more chilis with the meat creates a nice burn.

This is good, mid-western, stick to your ribs food.  I can’t eat like this often, but every so often, you need a meal your grandmother would have made.  I needed a comfort food meal tonight, so I made one of my favorites – meatloaf.

Ingredients:

2 pounds moderately lean ground beef, pork, or lamb.  For great taste, use a little of each.  You need a little fat to keep the loaf from drying out.
2 pounds ground turkey or chicken
2 large eggs
1/4 cup milk
1/2 cup rolled oats or spiced bread crumbs
1 large white onion, chopped fine, or 1/2 cup dried onions
Canadian steak seasoning, to taste (dried garlic, course salt, and course ground black pepper)
Worcestershire Sauce, to taste
Optional – Red pepper flake or Hot sauce to taste.

Wash hands
Mix all ingredients in large mixing bowl.  Best results are gained if done using your hands.
Scoop mix into 9×13 pan.  Pat into uniform thickness in the pan.  I’ve also seen this done where the mix was put into muffin tins to make little individual loaves.  If you do that, adjust your cook time down a bit.
Wash hands
Place into 375 degree oven for 1 hour to 1 hour 15 minutes.  Center of loaf will be approximately 175 to 180 degrees when done.  Let rest for 10 minutes after removing from the oven.

Yes, wash your hands several times.  You’re going to be working your hands through raw meat here.

Serve with your favorite comfort starch, such as mashed potatoes or mac n cheese, and at least one vegetable.

Ingredients:

5 to 6 potatoes, clean and cut into 1/4 inch cubes
1 onion, coursely diced
Olive oil or melted butter, whichever you prefer
Chile Powder
Salt
Pepper
Cheese
Ham, Bacon, and or Sausage, cooked and diced
8 eggs
Black Pepper

The night before, place the potatoes, onions and chile powder in a 9×13 inch baking pan and toss together with enough olive oil or melted butter to barely coat the potatoes.  Bake at 375 for 30 to 45 minutes, or until the potatoes are fork tender.  Cool, cover and refrigerate.

Whisk the eggs until the whites and yolks are thoroughly combined.  Add the cheese and meat.  Mix thoroughly.   Add black pepper to taste.  Pour mixture over the potatoes and place in a 375 degree oven for 45 to 60 minutes, or until the eggs have set up and the cheese is melted.

Serve with fresh fruit, toast or biscuit, and the beverage of your choice.  This recipe fed two adults, two teenagers, and a toddler with enough for leftovers.

It’s a cold, dreary day here in Kentucky, so I feel like some comfort food today.  This is a variation on something my grandmother used to make in her giant cast iron roaster.  It works out really well in a crockpot.

Ingredients:

5 or 6 large potatoes, washed and cut in to 1/8 to 1/4 inch coins
3 large white onions, cut in half and then sliced into thin strips
3 chicken or turkey thighs, or 1/2 pound beef or pork stew meat, cut into 1/2 inch cubes
4 sausages, cut in to 1/2 inch cubes (italian, smoked, polish, whatever you prefer)
2 cloves of garlic, minced
Favorite spices – Oregano, thyme, red pepper flake, salt and pepper in this instance
1 cup chicken broth

Assembly:

Use a handful of the onions to make a layer on the bottom of the crockpot.  Put in the meat in an even layer over the onions.  Sprinkle with the garlic and most of the spices.  Sprinkle in another layer of onions, then alternate layers of potatoes and onions until the crockpot is full.  Sprinkle the rest of the spices on top of the final layer of potatoes, then pour on the chicken broth.  Cover, and cook in the crock pot on medium or high for 8 to 10 hours.  Serve with your favorite green salad or vegetable.

Last night I made one of my favorites, Potato Corn Chowder.

Ingredients

6 to 8 large potatoes, scrubbed but not peeled
2 cups cream
2 12 ounce cans evaporated milk
2 12 ounce cans creamed corn
1 pound fresh baby carrots or 2 cups chopped carrots
1 pound fresh frozen whole kernel corn
2 cups chopped fresh mushrooms, or two handfuls dried mushrooms
1 medium white onion, chopped fine
2 cloves of garlic, chopped fine
Seasonings

After scrubbing the potatoes clean, slice lengthwise into quarters and then slice the quarters into 1/4 inch slices.  Place in a LARGE stock pot and add enough water to cover the potatoes.  Salt liberally and bring to a boil.  Once the potatoes come to a boil, reduce heat and simmer until the potatoes are just barely fork tender.  Skim off the foam at the top of the pot and then remove about half the water.   Add rest of food ingredients and mix gently.  Add seasonings to taste.   Simmer until onions are tender and sweet.  Thicken with a slurry of corn starch if preferred.   Serve with a nice crusty bread or biscuits.   Prep and cooking time – less than an hour.   Feeds an army.

What seasonings should you use?  That’s up to you.  I added some more salt, lots of black pepper, and a liberal dose of Essence.  This made the soup really peppery and flavorful.  I’ve also used red pepper flake, Old Bay seasoning, or whatever floated my boat at the time.  This is a pretty forgiving, free-form dish to make.

Variations –

Fry up two or three thick slices of bacon until very crispy but not burnt.  Use the resulting fat to make a rue and use that to thicken the chowder.  Crumble up the bacon and add to the chowder, but reduce the amount of salt you use.

Add your favorite bi-valve to make a really good clam chowder.  I usually use canned clams because I can’t smell the ocean from here and add all the water from the can along with the meat for added flavor.

I was going to make a pot roast, but what I thought was a beef chuck roast turned out to be a bunch of pork steaks, the pork chops older, better brother.  So I winged it. 

Layer the bottom of the crockpot with 1/2 inch of miropoix  That’s one chopped onion, three chopped carrots, and three chopped stalks of celery.  Place one pound of pork steaks on top of the vegetables in an even layer across the pot.  Add soy sauce and Worcestershire to taste, along with two chopped cloves of garlic. 

Pour in one dark fall beer.  I used Blue Moon Pumpkin Ale, but any dark spicy beer will work.  Don’t worry, the pumpkin in this beer is a very minor note in a very complex brew. 

Pour in one can of low salt beef broth.  Add salt and pepper to taste.

On top of the meat, broth, and flavorings, add the potatoes.  I prepared these by quartering 5 or 6 large russet potatoes, then cutting the quarters into 1/4 inch slices.  Layer the potatoes across the top of the meat.

Set the crockpot to high heat and let it cook all day.

I’m going to make a big pot of steamed broccoli.  It’s BooBoo’s favorite vegetable, and it’s fun to watch him make the Ent army on his plate before devouring them.

I will serve by taking the potatoes out of the pot, then carefully taking the pork steaks out and putting them in a shallow pan.  Then I will re-add the potatoes to the crock pot and mix them thoroughly with the vegetables and juice.

I will garnish the pork with a healthy serving if Dixie’s Awesome Sauce.  Since I already opened the Chipotle flavor, I will use that tonight.  Use whatever meat sauce strikes your fancy.

Fall is here, so we decided to make something kind of earthy and tasty.

Irish Woman made a pan of her fabulous homemade dressing.

To go with it, I made the following:

In a wok, saute half a chopped onion, two cloves of chopped garlic, two stalks of celery, a handful of sliced mushrooms, and one granny smith apple in 1/4 inch cubes until the onion becomes translucent.  Add in one pound of boneless skinless chicken thighs, and brown the chicken.  Add one can of chicken broth and season with Old Bay seasoning, salt, pepper, and whatever fall seasonings you like.  When the chicken is done all the way through, stir in a can of Campbell’s Cream of Mushroom  and Garlic soup and two cups of chopped broccoli.  Add more chicken broth if the sauce becomes too thick too quickly.  Cook for five minutes until the broccoli is tender, then serve over penne pasta.

Yummy!