Herb Roasted Potatoes

Corey loves meat and potatoes, but for some reason I don't make them very much. However, I started making roasted potatoes a few months ago and Corey has been in heaven. It doesn't matter what I serve them with (in fact, a couple of nights ago I just made the potatoes and veggies and he was still happy. If you know Corey, you know it's all sorts of incredible for him to enjoy a meal without meat!) I finally perfected the recipe and Corey made sure that I wrote it down so that these ("best potatoes you've ever made") make it on to our dinner table more frequently.

Herb Roasted Potatoes
Serves 3-4

2 lbs. baby red or yellow potatoes, washed and quartered
2 Tb. olive oil
1/2 onion, thinly sliced
1 tsp. fresh rosemary, finely minced (or 1/2 tsp. dried)
1 tsp. smoked paprika
1 tsp. garlic salt
1/2 tsp. dried parsley (or 2 tsp. fresh)
1/2 tsp. fresh ground black pepper
2 Tb. Parmesan cheese, grated

Combine all ingredients in a gallon-size Ziploc bag and shake until well coated and combined. Spread potatoes evenly on baking pan. Bake at 400 degrees for 35-40 minutes or until crispy, stirring halfway through. Enjoy!

Breakfast Casserole

We had this breakfast casserole at a brunch after a baby blessing a couple of weeks ago. When Corey took his first bite he let out a big, contented sigh and said it was amazing. He then told me another 4+ times in the next 10 minutes how delicious it was. And then he did something totally unexpected. He went up to my friend's mom and asked her for the recipe, then immediately requested that I make it for dinner that night. No, I'm not joking.

This is easy and delicious, although it does take awhile to bake. But it is definitely worth it. This would be a great breakfast on Christmas morning, or any morning when you're going to be hanging around the house for awhile and will have enough time to wait for it to cook. This also makes great leftovers, so you could even bake it the night before and pop it in the oven the next morning for 15-30 minutes, until heated through and the cheese is warm and bubbly.

Breakfast Casserole
recipe from Julie Argyle

1 pkg. (24-26 oz.) frozen hash browns
1/2 cup butter
1 lb. deli ham, cubed (or breakfast sausage or bacon, cooked and crumbled...or a combination of the three)
6 eggs
1 1/2 cups milk
1/2 tsp. salt
2 cups grated cheddar cheese

1. Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Spray 9x13 baking dish with cooking spray. Spread frozen hash browns evenly in the pan. Thinly slice butter and place evenly over the hash browns (or melt butter and pour over the top of the hash browns). Bake for 25 minutes.
2. Remove hash browns from oven and turn temperature down to 350 degrees. Top hash browns evenly with ham (or sausage/bacon/or a combo).
3. Mix eggs,milk, and salt until completely combined. Pour over hash browns and meat in prepared pan. Return to oven and bake for 30 - 40 minutes, or until set and eggs are completely cooked. Top evenly with cheese and return to oven for 3-5 minutes or until cheese is completely melted.

Yastrzemski Pot Roast

I cook five days a week at work. But I don't think that the recipes that go along with the menus are very good. So I tend to experiment a little bit to improve them. This doesn't always work out (Corn Nut Chicken, Ask Me How!), but most of the time, after some trial and error, we have something that's a huge improvement. So this is my version of pot roast, which I think is a great improvement. It's technically a Yankee pot roast, but I'm opposed to all things Yankee so I renamed it after Carl Yastrzemski (Yaz!).

Ingredients-

One beef roast, about 4 lbs (I like to use round, but chuck would work too- figure about 1/2 lb per person if you want to make the recipe smaller)
1 1/2 tablespoons Flour
2 teaspoons Kosher or Sea Salt
1 teaspoon Black Pepper (fresh ground is much better)
1/2 teaspoon Sugar
2ish tablespoons Butter (or olive oil if you're trying to be a little healthier)

Can of tomato juice or vegetable juice cocktail (I use the spicy V8)
Worcestershire Sauce
Dijon Mustard (you better have some of this on hand it is Essential after all)
Basil
Thyme
Rosemary (just a tiny bit)
Onions, minced
Mushrooms, sliced
Garlic, minced

Red potatoes (I use Red Bliss ones), cut into chunk, usually just about quartered
Celery, chopped in 1-2 inch pieces on the bias
Carrots, about the same as the celery, maybe a little smaller
Onions, chopped
Parsley, chopped (only the fresh kind! no dried parsley!)

Directions-
1- Mix together the flour, salt, pepper and sugar. Coat the outside of the roast with the mixture. This will help with the browning process. Heat the butter (or oil) in a deep, heavy, pan (something that's oven safe if you plan to cook it in the oven). Brown the roast on all sides on a medium high heat. Remove the roast and set aside, tented with foil.

2- Mix tomato juice, Worcestershire sauce, mustard, and herbs together in a small bowl. Mix thoroughly, the mustard can be hard to incorporate. Set aside for the moment.

3- In the same pan (on medium high heat) that you browned the roast (there should be a tasty fond at the bottom now) you're going to caramelize the minced onions, mushrooms and garlic. Add in a little more butter (or oil) if there isn't enough left to coat the bottom of the pan. Then add the onions, mushrooms and garlic (in that order, you don't want the garlic to burn). When they have just started to caramelize (about 2-3 minutes) deglaze the pan with the tomato juice mixture you made in step 2. Stir constantly until the fond from the bottom of the pan has mostly incorporated into the liquid. Pour liquid into a large measuring cup or bowl.

4- Add the vegetables (potatoes, carrots, onions, celery) to the pan. If necessary, add a little more butter/oil. Cook on medium heat for 2-3 minutes, stirring constantly, you just want to soften the vegetables, not brown them!

5- Add the roast back into the pan, nestled right in amongst, and on top of, the vegetables. Pour the tomato juice/mushroom mixture on top, covering the meat and the vegetables. Top with the parsley.

6- Bring everything to a simmer, cover, and put into a pre-heated 325 degree oven. Cook for three hours, checking halfway through to see if meat is covered by liquid, if not, then turn the meat over at that point.

7- After three hours, take it out, slice the meat and serve with the vegetables. If you want to make the liquid into a gravy then add 2 tablespoons of flour into 1/2 cup of water, stirring it in until it is completely incorporated.

You could also finish this in a crock pot. All you'd have to do is, after step 4, take the vegetables, pour them into a large crock pot, add the roast, sauce and parsley and cook on medium for 5-6 hours, turning it up to high at the end if it's not quite done.

There's the possibilities for many variations on the recipe. Feel free to experiment with different herbs, or add in some beef stock to the sauce for that extra beefy flavor. Cooking is art, not science, so just try something! In fact I have an idea to use a pork roast and put an Asian spin on the recipe (a lime/soy sauce, maybe some daikon, ginger).

Chicken Pot Pie

Pot pie is not my thing. I don't know why, maybe because of those nasty single-serving frozen pot-pies that you see in the store all the time. Mushy peas. Thick gravy. Fatty chicken. Soggy crust. Ugh. So it's very surprising that I wanted to try this recipe. But I saw it and couldn't stop thinking about it so I made it for dinner. Amazingly enough, I loved it. And by loved it I mean it's one of my new favorite recipes and I want to eat it every week for the rest of my life.


Chicken Pot Pie
adapted from Domestication in Progress

1 box refrigerated pie crusts (should have 2 "ready to roll" pie crusts inside)
3 chicken breasts
5 red potatoes
3 cans Cream of Chicken soup
1 bag frozen peas and carrots - thawed
1 sweet onion - diced
1/4 cup butter
1 egg

**This makes one 10" pie (very full) or two 8" pies (not as full). If you choose to make two smaller pies you can either buy 2 boxes of refrigerated pie crusts or just do a top crust and omit the bottom crust.

1. Heat oven to 450
2. Heat two large pots of water - these are for the chicken and potatoes
3. Trim fat from chicken and dice the potatoes, then add (separately) to the two pot of boiling water.
4. If making a two crust pie, cook bottom crust in oven for 9 minutes (this is so the bottom crust won't get soggy when you add the filling). After cooking, turn the oven down to 400 to cook the pie.
5. Saute the onion in butter until it is translucent and tender.
6. When the chicken is done shred or dice it into bite size pieces
7. The potatoes are done when they break apart by being stabbed with a fork - strain them.
8. Combine the shredded chicken, potatoes, peas and carrots, onions and the cans of Cream of Chicken soup in a large bowl
9. Pour the glorious mixture into the already-cooked pie crust
10. Now add the top crust and trim to fit the pie plate.
11. Whisk the egg in a small bowl and baste over the top crust*the egg is strictly for cosmetic purposes, it helps the pie keep it's color and provides a shine when cooked.
12. Make 4 slits in the top of the pie with a knife to provide steam release while the pie is baking.
13. Bake for 40 minutes and then let the pie cool for a few minutes on top of the stove.
14. Serve!