A Jeanne in the Kitchen

I have been cooking my whole life. My mother took a picture of me helping her cook when I was just 3 years old. (I wish I still had hat picture). So, you would think I would know a lot about cooking, and I do. But here is ALWAYS something new to learn.

I love potatoes. I love them just about every way they are cooked too. I cook them often, in many different ways. One of our favorite ways to eat potatoes is roasting them. I make good roasted potatoes too. But I just discovered an even better way of roasting them. I learned this new method from watching America’s Test Kitchen videos. I learn a lot from them. I find them to be very informative and easy to follow.

This new method of making perfect, crisp roasted potatoes is to boil the cut potatoes first in some water with 2 TBSP of white vinegar and a dash of salt. They only thing new for me was the first step of boiling them with the vinegar. I never knew about this step before, but apparently the vinegar causes the potatoes to form a thin crust, which helps them hold their shape. It also helps the potatoes absorb the salt and other flavorings as well. Using vinegar for the potatoes also helps when frying them too. It draws out the starch, making them more rigid and less likely to stick together. The cooks fry them twice, first blanching them until slightly limp in peanut oil heated to 325 degrees, and again in 375-degree oil to crisp and brown them.

Bring the potatoes to a full and rapid boil, then reduce the heat a bit and let them boil for 10 minutes. Then drain them and let them cool slightly.

Preheat the oven to 500* F or about 260-270* C.

Once the potatoes have been drained and slightly cooled, toss them in olive oil, salt, pepper and whatever other spices and herbs you like to use and completely coat them. Spread them in a single layer onto a baking sheet.

Roast them for about 20 minutes, then stir them and roast again for another 20 minutes, or until they are nicely browned and crispy.

I served my potatoes with a ham, pepper and asparagus quiche. Delicious.

I will use this new method for roasting my potatoes from here on out too. Who knew? So see, old dogs can learn new tricks. 🙂 There is ALWAYS something new to learn, no matter how much you already know or how much experience you have. Always be open to learning new things. You’ll be amazed at the results when you do.

Stay safe, stay well, and always keep an open mind. ‘Til next time.

I think I must have been Spanish in past lives. When we went to Spain a few years ago, I absolutely fell in love with the whole country, its culture and especially the food. I would be a very happy camper if I was ever lucky enough to live in Spain and to call Spain home.

My latest Spanish culinary adventure led me to a delicious chicken paella styled casserole. And the best part …. you guessed it. I got to use my leftovers! I even served it Spanish style, with warmed ciabatta with an olive oil dipping sauce, and a cool Spanish salad on the side. I would have served it with a cool Spanish Albarino wine too, but it was not chilled.

Paella was originally the food of he people. It was “farmer’s food”, made with rice and whatever else was on hand at the time. It varies from region to region. Sometimes it is made with chicken and/or sausage, sometimes it is made with wild game, sometimes it is made with different seafood, and sometimes, it is vegetarian. There are so many endless possibilities of how to make and perfect a good paella.

Paella is also known as a very social dish. It is perfect for all kinds of gatherings and occasions. In Spain paella is still unique. Not only do families congregate on mass to eat paella in restaurants, but it is often cooked at weekends at holiday homes in ‘bodegas’ or ‘txokos’  (large dining areas where families gather) or at beach or mountain picnic sites. There are many paella competitions all over Spain and very often a giant paella is the centerpiece for many fiestas.

Chicken Paella Casserole

1 1/2-2 lbs cooked, shredded chicken

1 cup cooked sausage or chorizo

1 cup onions, diced medium

1 large tomato, diced medium

1 heaping TBSP garlic

salt & pepper to taste

cayenne pepper and/or red pepper flakes to taste

1 red bell pepper, diced medium

3 cups cooked rice

1 cup frozen peas

1/3 cup Peruvian peppers, optional

1/2 cup olives – I love mixing my olives, so I used 3 different kinds, including some Spanish olives

1 1/2 cups milk

1/4 cup tomato paste or marinara sauce

2 TBSP flour

1 tsp turmeric and/or saffron

1/3 cup sour cream

Combine the cooked chicken with the olives, rice, tomatoes and peas and set aside.

Mix the onions, peppers, and sausage together and set aside.

Add the milk, tomato paste or marinara sauce, salt, pepper and flour together in a saucepan.

Preheat the oven to 375* F or 200*C.

Saute the onion and pepper mixture in olive oil for about 7 minutes, or until the peppers and onions are softened and the onions are translucent and the sausage is completely cooked.

Cook the milk mixture over a medium flame and whisk together constantly, bring to a boil and continue to cook for about a minute or until it thickens. Remove from the heat and mix in the sour cream.

Once everything is cooked, combine it all together and mix well.

Spray a 9×13 baking sheet with cooking spray, then evenly spread the mixture into the pan. Cover with aluminum foil and bake for about 20-25 minutes, then remove the foil, and continue to bake for an additional 15 minutes or so.

When it is ready, serve it along side your favorite side dishes. My Spanish salad was simple mixed greens with diced tomatoes, hearts of palm and artichoke hearts, with some Cotija cheese on top for Larry and almond slivers for me. I used some of my jalapeno-lime vinaigrette as the dressing too. It’s Salad Weather Again

It was a perfect Spring/Summer kind of meal, especially out on our deck al fresco style. !Desfruitas! 🙂

Enjoy your days and stay safe and stay well Everyone. ‘Til next time.

This is one of my favorite times of the year. Everything is opening up and all the seasonal birds and animals are beginning to come back. I just love it. I saw my firs Double-Crested Cormorant for the season. He was was soaking up the sun and splashing around without a care in the world, just thoroughly enjoying himself.

Look. He’s smiling for the camera.

There are plenty of “firsts” in every day. Enjoy them when you can.

I am meeting more and more new types of ducks all the time, and I love it. Sometimes I have to do a double take, and then when I come back home and edit my pictures, I am so excited, because there is yet another new friend I just met. This time, my new duck and new friends were a pair of Blue-Winged Teals. So not only did I get to see one new duck, but he brought his mate along with him, and I got to meet them both. They are a very handsome couple, don’t you think? 🙂

Life is full of surprises. You just never know what you’re going to see.

It is once again that time of year when we lighten up as much as possible. The warmer days and bright sunshine call for more activities outside. They also call for lightening things up in the kitchen. No more heavy dishes and rich sauces for the time being. Instead, it is time for more brightly colored salads of all kinds.

I made yet another Southwestern steak salad that was full of all kinds of healthy colors and fresh goodness. I mention colors because it is a good rule of thumb that the more “colors” your foods contain, the more healthy they are too. The reasoning behind this school of thought is that you are are eating a wide variety of fresh fruits and vegetables. So color up your foods, especially during spring and summer when there are so many fresh fruits and vegetables from which to choose.

I would have added fresh avocado slices too, but I didn’t have any at the time, and I didn’t feel like going to the store just for avocados.

I marinated the steak first in some of my leftover balsamic vinaigrette I had made earlier. I marinated the steak for about 3-4 hours before grilling it up. That made it very tender and flavorful.

Next, I made a jalapeno-lime vinaigrette for my salad.

Jalapeno-Lime Vinaigrette

1 large jalapeno, minced fine

2 tsp garlic

1 tsp chili lime seasoning

1 tsp cumin

salt & pepper to taste

2 TBSP lime juice

2 TBSP lime olive oil, optional

1/3 cup olive oil

1/4 cup white balsamic vinegar

1-2 TBSP honey

1/4 cup fresh chopped cilantro.

Whisk everything together until well blended and set aside until ready to use.

The Salad

Rather than lettuce, this time I chose to put everything on a bed of spinach instead. Larry likes a lot of cheese on his salads, and I don’t like any on mine. This is just a simple salad, filled with simple items. Put together, they were all delicious. I made these salads for two, and didn’t really measure anything. You can use as much or as little as you like, depending on how many people you are making it for.

fresh spinach, stems removed and chopped in a rough cut

black beans, drained and rinsed

frozen corn, completely thawed

red onion, sliced very thin

tomatoes, cut into wedges

cheddar cheese, optional

cooked steak or chicken, sliced into thin strips

jalapeno-lime vinaigrette

toasted pepitas or fried tortilla strips, optional for topping

Layer it all up, from the spinach up, finishing with the sliced steak or chicken and your toppings and then drizzle on your dressing. !Delicioso!

This is a perfect summer salad, and is made even more perfect when dining al fresco. It is so colorful and fresh and just captures the essence of summer. You get a little bit of summer in every bite. I served it with a red blend since I was eating steak.

Color up your days and color up your foods. Make life as colorful as you can. Stay safe and stay well everyone. ‘Til next time.

WOW! Today, I hit the jackpot! There was so much to see. I don’t even know where to start or what to share. But since the snapping turtle was one of the first things I saw, I will start by sharing my pictures of him today. He was a large snapping turtle, but by no means, the largest one we have in our ponds or lakes. I would say he was a medium-large turtle. But he was right up at the surface, which allowed me to get some very good shots of him.

He was starting to get a little uncomfortable being in the spotlight, so he is starting to turn away, to go down to the bottom once again.

At least Mr. Turtle stuck around long enough for me to get some very good, very clear shots of him before leaving. Thank you Mr. turtle.

As I have mentioned many times, I find my inspiration for recipes from many different sources. This time, I was inspired by one of our very own again. Gail from http://snapshotsincursive.com/ had posted a recipe for Red Chile Garlic Chicken that just really made my mouth water. I had to try it. Of course, I changed it a bit, but not by much, and I was using my leftover Costco rotisserie chicken rather than cooking the chicken. I also added vegetables to the dish. I did not add the dried red chilies, but instead used red pepper flakes.

Chili Garlic Chicken and Vegetables

1 lb chicken – I used cooked chicken breasts that I added later

The Sauce

1-2 tsp red pepper flakes, or to taste

salt & black pepper to taste

1 TBSP garlic

1 TBSP ginger

3/4 cup packed brown sugar

1/4 cup rice vinegar

2 TBSP red wine

1 TBSP soy sauce

1 tsp paprika

2 TBSP honey ginger balsamic vinegar, optional

1 TBSP cornstarch

Combine everything together and set aside until later.

The Vegetables

2 carrots, peeled and sliced Asian style

1 cup broccoli florets

1 cup sliced mushrooms

1/2 red bell pepper, sliced thin

1/3 cup green onions, sliced Asian style

cashews for topping

toasted sesame seeds for topping

olive oil for cooking

Saute all the vegetables together in a hot skillet or wok with the olive oil for about 5-7 minutes, or until mostly tender, but still have a slight crispness to them.

If you are cooking your chicken, cook it in a separate very hot skillet, with more olive oil, and salt & pepper until it browns. My chicken was already cooked, so I skipped this part.

Heat up the sauce and bring to a boil, then reduce the heat to a simmer and continue to cook for about 7-8 minutes, stirring frequently. Add the chicken and cook until it is heated thoroughly.

I served it over cooked white rice and added my vegetables on top of the chicken. Then I added the cashews, green onions and toasted sesame seeds on top. I added some potstickers on the side too. Since this is a bold, heavy sauce, with red wine in the sauce, I served it with bold cabernet sauvignon. DELICIOUS!

Thank you Gail for this delicious inspiration. I hope you don’t mind that I personalized it a bit. As you see, there is nothing wrong with tweaking and personalizing recipes to suit your own tastes. In fact, I encourage it. The personal touches are part of what make cooking so much fun. Gail and I both started with the same basic recipe, but we each added our own style and personality, making them completely different. 🙂

Stay safe and stay well Everyone. ‘Til next time.

I have been busy with a lot of things that have been going on with the church these last couple of weeks, so not a lot of time in the kitchen, other than cooking simple things or using up leftovers. But I have still been going out and discovering “who” has been visiting around our lakes. This time, a Common Grackle and his mate caught my eye and the lens of my camera. I just love his colors.

Stay safe and stay well Everyone. Always take time to find something special in each and every day, even if only little things. After all, it is the little things that really mean the most.

I had not one but two services to provide the weekly coffee cart for this morning. Pastor Mathew had requested cinnamon rolls, but because I needed so many, I have to confess, I did not make them. Costco came through for me though, as they always do. We had lots and lots of cinnamon rolls. Usually I provide a variety of goodies, but today, it was mostly cinnamon rolls. These were my extras, just in case I ran out. I had plenty, though so no need to worry.

Lauren is sampling before she had to go up on stage to sing.

Our worship team giving an awesome presentation, as they always do.

I hope you all had a Happy Easter, or a good Passover or Ramadan, or whichever holiday you celebrated.

Stay safe and stay well Everyone. ‘Til next time.

Yesterday, our church had a big community Easter egg hunt. Lacy, who works in our children’s ministry, put on a great event. A bunch of us all volunteered to help scatter Easter eggs and as well as help out with a bunch of other fun things she had planned for the day. She even had a cute dance and puppet show for the kids before the Easter egg hunt. We had about 4000 filled eggs for the kids of all ages to find. The eggs were filled with candy, small toys, money and a few lucky eggs had special tickets inside, but more on those in a bit. There were lots of smiles from all the kids who were there. I think everyone had a lot of fun.

I took a whole bunch of pictures, but I am only going to share a few with you. Of course if you want to see them all, you can always go to our church website.

Wendy and Leva, with Wendy’s special friend “Johnny”.

Pastor John getting into the spirit.

Our Lead Pastor, Matthew.

And our guests, the kids and their families. They were all so excited and had so much fun. These pictures are inside our Sanctuary, our newly painted sanctuary that we all painted last week. (We painted the whole inside of the church).

The hunt is on, outside, behind the church.

Opening up the eggs to see what’s inside. This little boy got a big spider. I think he liked it. He was so full of personality. He and his two older brothers were all dressed alike.

Lots of candy.

One of church members donated a whole bunch of brand new bikes for the event, so some of the eggs were lucky eggs, and had a special ticket inside for a brand new bike.

These two little girls did not find that special ticket, but they were so sweet. They are taking care of one of the recent Ukrainian refugees, and they were telling me the story about their new friend. They said if they won, they would give the bike to her.

I did get some pictures of some of the new bike owners though. That was a complete surprise to them, and totally made their day. This little girl chose the new Spiderman bike.

This boy got the big mountain bike. His shirt matched his new bike. It was just meant to be.

At the end of the day, some people were ready to take a break,

while others were still having fun.

All in all, it was yet another fun and busy day. Everyone had a great time.

Happy Easter Everyone. Stay safe and stay well. ‘Til next time.