egg souffle

A very dear friend-of-the family, Mary Wagner, provided us with this recipe so long ago that I just assumed it went back several generations in the Reynolds/Husung family. I recall having egg souffle at every Easter (that's this weekend, y'all), Christmas, and birthday brunch since 1979.

Make it the night before (this Saturday) and bake it about an hour before you plan to serve your friends and family. It's a crowd pleaser.


the damages
saute pan
large mixing bowl
long-handled mixing spoon
cheese grater
measuring cup
measuring teaspoon
sharp knife
cutting board
9x12" baking pan

the ingredients

1 pound bulk breakfast sausage

6 pieces of white bread

6 eggs, beaten

1 cup cheddar cheese

1 cup milk

1 teaspoon each of dry mustard and salt

the preparation 

Brown the sausage in a saute pan. Use a cheese grater to shred 1 cup of cheese and your knife and cutting board to remove the crusts from the bread slices. Cube the bread. With the large spoon, combine all ingredients in your mixing bowl. Refrigerate, covered, overnight if desired. 

Bake uncovered at 375 for 45ish minutes or until completely set and browned on top.

no Easter bunnies were injured in the making of this meal

Slice and serve with mimosas and Cadbury eggs. Enjoy.

Mistakes taste good

Not every recipe comes out a success, but learning along the way can be delicious.

After my neighbor helped me hook up my new TV, I decided to thank him with some fresh baked bread. Good thing I made two loaves.

The damage

• Stand mixer dough hook and bowl
• Baking sheet
• Cup measure
• Teaspoon measure
• Cutting board and bread knife

The bread

• Flour
• Salt
• Yeast
• Water

Follow the Joy of Cooking recipe for french bread, which conveniently yields two petite baguettes.

Lessons learned

• Any seams in the bread -- faults along which the dough isn't really sealed to itself  after kneading-- will crack open in the oven. Knead thoroughly.
• Mine baked for a good 15 minutes longer than the recipe indicates.
• I could see brush strokes where I painted on the egg wash. Not hot.

Overall, the precision of baking doesn't stop with careful measurements. Though not particularly challenging, baking techniques require close attention to detail.

But I'm not scared. If taste counts, this bread baking adventure was a resounding success.

Bananarama

It's Black Friday. Black means overripe bananas and no desire to leave home. Joy of Cooking has yet to fail us. Substitute lemon zest for lime zest, and nuts for chocolate and you win.

I mean WIN.

Bhan's Famous Chili

This serves as the first of what will become a catalog of crock-and/or-one-pot wonders. You want easy clean up without sacrificing interesting flavors? Look no further.

Shared with many via email, this also marks the first public release of Bhan's Famous Chili Recipe. Let's end the intrigue. (Pssst. This also marks the first time I measured ingredients. All for you, my loyal reader.)

The damage

• Cutting board
• Chefs knife
• Saute pan
• Spatula (try wood if you haven't already)
• Crock pot
• Spoon for tasting as you go
• Ladle for serving

The chili

• 1 lb ground turkey or beef
• 1 medium yellow onion, diced
• 2-3 cloves garlic, chopped
• 28-oz can pinto beans
• 14-oz can Rotel (original flavor)
• 4-oz can green chilis (chopped)
• 28-oz can diced tomatoes
• 1/2 t Chili powder
• 1/2 t Crushed red pepper flakes
• 1/2 t Cayenne pepper
• 1/2 t Cumin
• 1/8 t Garlic powder (a dash will do)
• Salt and pepper

With the saute pan on medium-high heat, brown the meat, onions, garlic, and 1/8 t each of salt and pepper. While that's going, limber up your can-opening muscles and dump the contents of each canned ingredient (including, in the case of the beans, the juices) into your crock pot. Crank the temp to high. Add the remaining seasonings and cover.

Once the meat cooks thoroughly and the onions appear translucent, give it a quick taste. The meat should be yummy by itself before you add it to the crock pot. (Think delicious ground meat, not taco meat.) This helps adjust seasonings later on. If it hits the spot, add the entire contents of the skillet to the crock pot and replace the lid.

Choose your own adventure
Option 1: Eat it now. Keep crock pot on high heat; return to stir once an hour for about 2.5 hours.
Option 2: Eat it tomorrow. Prepare everything as above, but do not heat the crock pot. Refrigerate overnight. In the morning, plug in your crock pot on the lowest setting and go to work. Get your healthcare IT on... or whatever it is that you do... and when you come home, it's done. Like magic.

SERVE yourself and a house full of Packer fans WITH A DOLLOP OF SOUR CREAM, A SLICE OF AVOCADO, AND A FEW CILANTRO LEAVES.

A few notes

• Keep your spices in square jars (they don't roll), with the labels facing up/out, in a container or on a rack that can move around the kitchen with you. That way they're within reach whether you're at the stove, cutting board, or... in this case... crock pot.
• For more spicy heat, increase red chili flakes and cayenne pepper. For more savory spice, add more chili powder and cumin.
• When it comes to cooking with canned ingredients, buy what's on sale. Most often, the recipe calls for doctoring up the ingredients to the point blissfully beyond recognition. Look in the ethnic foods aisle for better prices-per-ounce for many canned items.
• For browning meat, try a cast iron skillet. (Go for a 10" with sloped sides for the most versatility.) With the simple investment of a couple uses involving fatty ingredients (read: bacon) and a little maintenance know-how, a cast iron pan will last in your family forever and work for everything and quickly become a kitchen essential. Rule #1. Never use soap. A plain nylon-bristled scrub brush will do the trick. Rule #2. Never put it away wet. Water will create rust. Instead, once clean, place on a burner on high heat and set a timer for about 3 minutes. This will cause all the excess moisture to evaporate. Store in the open. (Mine hangs from a sturdy hook on the wall above the sink.)

Enchilada Mama: On Vital Kitchen Equipment

These here are my onion-cutting goggles. Different pair than my swogging goggles. (Carissa, ya hear?!) My eyeballs get a little emotional when cutting onions. When I was a teenager and started cooking in earnest, I tried an old pair of ski goggles... and GUESS WHAT?! They have vents along the eye socket (no bueno - they let in all that onioney air). And so here we are.

Back to the food.

Sometimes 'over' means 'behind me in life,' so today I bring you a low-fat, nutrition-rich main dish that you can work off with a kettlebell and one episode of Bones.

The sauce

• 2 packets Fernandez enchilada sauce (have your Aunt Karen send you some each Christmas)
• 14-oz can tomato sauce & equal part tap water
• 2 cloves garlic, finely chopped

Combine ingredients in a covered saucepan over low heat for about 20 minutes. Whisk occasionally. What's that? Yours is a little runny? Uncover and let thicken for another 5 minutes. Dumbass.

The filling

• One package Morning Star meal starters (a.k.a. fake ground beef minus the Catholicism guilt)
• Coupla tomatoes, chopped
• 14-oz can of pinto beans, drained and rinsed
• One medium yellow onion, chopped (use yer goggles!)

Saute ingredients for a few minutes. Taste and adjust salt and other seasonings, like cumin, accordingly. While that's cooking, switch the laundry, change a lightbulb, and flat-iron your hair for tomorrow.

The assembly
Spray a baking dish with Pam and preheat oven to... oh, about 385. Nuke 4 low-fat, whole wheat tortillas for about 10 seconds. (This ensures they're pliable enough to roll and fold - let's save cracks for plumbers.) Set one at a time in the baking dish and fill with the yummies in the saute pan. Sprinkle with shredded cheddar. Fold over on itself so seam is on the bottom. Repeat 3 more times so all the enchiladas fit snugly. Bake covered with foil till thoroughly heated (about 15 minutes). Ladle on the enchilada sauce return to oven, uncovered, till cheese and sauce are hot and bubbling.

SERVE yourself and one other + leftovers WITH A DOLLOP OF FAT-FREE SOUR CREAM AND PICKLED JALAPENOS.

The damage

• Saute pan
• Chefs knife
• Cutting board
• Board scraper
• Ladle
• Baking dish
• Sauce pan
• Spatula for dishing up

A few notes

• Go ahead and use regular fatty cheddar cheese here or it won't melt properly.
• My 'damages' don't involve your serving goodies. If you want to use a charger - you know, the fancy gilded 16"-wide plates - and six forks, suit yourself.

Easy ain't the same as fast

There's probably a joke about the opposite sex in that title, but let's stick to food for now. Fast and easy are neither mutually agreeable nor exclusive. (Mrs. Johnson taught me the neither/nor, either/or trick there.)

Fast can be a 30-minute meal that requires extravagant kitchen equipment (read: hard to clean, if you even own it) and ingredients that you'll never finish off (who doesn't have half a celeriac root rotting in their crisper?!).

Easy can involve few ingredients, but several hours of invested time.

I went with the latter to create a pasta dish from scratch, using accessible ingredients that you likely have on hand or could easily use in the next day or two.

Whether fast or easy, no matter which way we go, let's never spend more time cleaning up than we did preparing the meal. (Read below for The Damage.)

For the pasta, follow the Joy of Cooking recipe. For the sauce, read on....

1 lb grape or cherry tomatoes, halved
1-2 T olive oil
Sprinkle sea salt
2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
5-6 sage leaves, julienned (optional)

Saute the tomatoes and garlic in the salt and olive oil for 10-15 minutes on low, or until the tomatoes have fully burst and the garlic is soft. Remove from heat and let sit. Prepare and cook the pasta. While it's cooking, return the sauce to a low heat and add sage leaves along with a ladle or two of the pasta water. Use a pasta fork (what the hell are those things called? you know what I mean... I hope) to remove the pasta from the water and finish cooking in the saute pan (about 1-2 more minutes) while mixing with the sauce.

SERVE yourself and three others AND EAT.

Goes well with a chilled 2009 Pinot Grigio on sale at Target for $15.99 per box.

Yum, right? You tell me. Try the sauce (maybe 20 minutes to prepare, beginning to end) on that bulk pasta you buy in 5-lb bags at Sam's Club. Wha? Only I do that?

What's the damage?

• Saute pan
• Chefs knife
• Cutting board
• Pasta pot
• Ladle
• Pasta fork
• Spatula
• Measuring cup
• Fork
• Pasta maker or rolling pin
• Board scraper

A few notes.

• To easily halve small tomatoes, place about 10 or 15 on your cutting board and rest your non-dominant hand across the top of them. Use a large chefs knife to slice horizontally between your hand and the cutting board. Call 911 if blood ensues.
• Grind your sea salt crystals and pepper corns as I use them. It creeps me out that pro chefs dip their fingertips into a bowl of salt, whether their hands are covered in raw chicken goo or not.
• Try growing sage, even indoors, even in winter. It's a great medium-light, low-maintenance plant that looks and tastes great.

My kids, Georgie Too Too and The Monkey, both know I like to cook, but they must have known I was up to something special because they both hovered nearby and watched the entire fiasco easy preparation from beginning to end. I can only wonder at what they were thinking. 'Why the hell is she taking pictures of her stove top?' 'She looks ridiculous in those chef clogs.' 'About time she changed my litter/took me for a walk/gave us some treats.'