New Homeschooling post at Cheerfully Chaotic!

Once again, my feed is not updating for my main blog, so... here's my solution to noting the update. :-)

Well now, THAT's embarrassing!

My dear former roomie, Lauren, over at Magnify the Lord with Me, just linked to my cooking blog.

Which hasn't been updated in three weeks!

Scandalous!

I feel like I was just caught by our neighbor with my nursing tank half off... not that that happened to me... LAST WEEK.

THAT would be even more humiliating.

And the reason C is no longer allowed to open the wooden door before I say it's ok.

I guess it's time for me to get busy typin' up my recipes (or random food thoughts... or non-recipes that include no amounts but do include a plethora of ideas as to how to alter the recipe so that you are no longer making anything similar to what I started out teaching you to make).

In the meantime, make the bread! And the egg casserole! And the enchiladas. Oh... the enchiladas. Mmmmm.

Sausage and Egg Casserole

Or, alternatively, Bacon and Egg Casserole. Or Chorizo and Egg Casserole. Or Ham and Egg Casserole. Be adventurous! Be practical! That's really more the case for me. I cook with what I have and rarely, if ever, go to the store just because I need it to make something. The three exceptions to this are eggs, milk, and flour. A girl always needs those.

And cute shoes.

And a cute purse.

Or in my case, a cute diaper clutch that functions as both my diaper bag and purse.

Cute, huh?

But I digress. Back to cooking.

What you'll need:

- Up to 3 T butter (I use between 2 and 3 T)
- 4 c of some sort of bread.  After the holidays I buy unseasoned store-baked bread croutons for $0.25 for a HUGE package. It is about 10 cups, probably. I also have used bread crumbs from homemade bread that needs repurposing, or the toasted heels of bread my husband refuses to eat. You can also used seasoned croutons, but I don't ever buy those, or even make them. Maybe that will be my next experiment...
- 1 c (8 oz) shredded cheese. I use cheddar or cheddar/monterrey jack blend, but this is flexible.
- 2 c milk
- 8 eggs, beaten
- 1/2+ t dry mustard. I'm a big fan of dry mustard, so I throw in a bit more.
- 1 lb breakfast sausage, cooked and crumbled. This is where you can substitute cooked and crumbled bacon or chorizo, or cooked and chopped ham.

What to do:

Cook your meat and set it aside. I've found that the easiest way to do this is to cook the meat the night before and refrigerate it. Or, you can cook twice as much as you need for a different breakfast and then freeze the other half. Then, you just pull it out and your dish is nearly prepared!

Heat oven to 325º. Put butter in baking dish (I use a 9x13 pan, usually) and let it melt in oven as the oven heats up. Once it's melted, remove from oven and tilt to coat the dish. Add croutons (or other bread crumbs) and sprinkle the cheese over the top. Set this aside. Note: using a smaller dish will give you a "thicker" casserole. This is a personal-preference thing. I like it both ways because I'm wild and crazy like that.

Combine the milk, eggs, and dry mustard; mix well. Pour the egg mixture over the cheese and sprinkle with the sausage (or your meat-of-choice). Bake at 325º for 40-50 minutes, or until just set. Let it stand at room temperature for 5-10 minutes to allow the eggs to firm up a bit more.

Bon Appétit! 

Chicken Enchiladas with Sour Cream Sauce

Here's the deal: these are the best chicken enchiladas I've ever had. I also have no real recipe for them. I vary it every single time, and every single time it's delicious. My amounts are pure "guesstimation" each time. Be brave! Go forth and conquer the enchiladas! Viva la Guesstimation!

The nice thing about this dish is that it can easily be modified to make more or less. It really will just depend on how many tortillas you have, because you can be as generous or as stingy as you want with your other ingredients. Also, I've been known to eat a tortilla (or three) while I'm making this. Don't judge. You might do the same thing someday.

Chicken Enchiladas with Sour Cream Sauce
Note: This dish can be made gluten-free (GF) easily
 

- Chicken

- Tortillas (I prefer handmade flour but also make this with corn to be GF)

- Chicken broth (I use Pacific Natural Foods Organic Free Range Chicken Broth because it's GF and tastes GREAT. Note, however, that the box looks like a Tazo Chai Tea Concentrate box. And yes, I've accidentally made enchiladas with a splash of chai tea, and tried to make chai tea with broth. Thanks for reminding me.) 

- Flour (when I make this gluten-free, I use Bob's Red Mill All-Purpose GF Flour)

- Butter

- Sour cream (I use Daisy Light, because that's what we always buy)

- Cream cheese, if desired

- Grated cheese (Cheddar or Monterrey Jack taste great)

Cook some chicken (I told you... no real amount. I use whatever I have on-hand for this-- the last time I made enchiladas I used some extra chicken from the Perfect Roasted Chickens I'd made the night before. This is a GREAT way to use up leftover chicken.) and shred it. For 20 enchiladas, though, if I was making chicken specifically for this, I'd probably cook 3-4 breasts, depending on their size. You can boil chicken, broil chicken, roast chicken, bake chicken, grill chicken, or buy rotisserie chicken for this. It will taste great no matter what.
 

Melt butter (for 20, I used one 1/2 cup stick) in a large pan for the roux.

Add flour (for 20, I used about 1/2 cup) to the butter and stir until it thickens and browns. Inhale. Mmm... I love that smell!

Add chicken broth to the roux (I used around one 32 oz box of chicken broth for the 20 enchiladas).

Stir, stir, stir away! Let it thicken, and then add some sour cream. I had around 12 oz in my refrigerator, so I added... 12 oz. If I have the full 16 oz container, I'll usually add it all. Instead, I threw in 4 oz of cream cheese that was going to go south (as in, all the way to Mexico) if I didn't find some use for it in the next two weeks or so. Get the sauce all nice and bubbly.

Remove the pan from heat so the sauce won't be so ridiculously unbearable to touch when it comes time to assemble the enchiladas.

Grease your pan(s). I spray Pam in 2 9x13 pans, but you can use any size pan you want. I sometimes have to shove the last few enchiladas in my pan, but it really depends on the size of your tortillas, the type of tortillas (flour or corn), and how much filling you put in each enchilada.

Dip one tortilla at a time in the sauce-- it will be HOT. I let mine cool a tiny bit, but you need it to be hot enough to soften the tortillas a bit so they don't tear (corn tortillas tend to tear anyway. You can alleviate this some by softening your tortillas in the microwave for a few seconds. Drinking a margarita or two will also help. It's a moral support thing.).

Add chicken and grated cheese to the left side of each tortilla and then roll it from left to right.  I use around 1/8-1/4 cup of filling usually... again, there's no rules here. Be wild! Go loca! Place the filled tortilla seam-side-down in your pan.

I can easily fit 8 Central Market homemade tortillas across and then 2 to fill in the bottom.

Continue this process with all of your tortillas.

Pour any leftover sauce on top.

Bake at 350 for 30 minutes, or until bubbly. Enjoy! 

Bon Appétit doesn't seem quite appropriate with a Mexican dish, but seeing as how I speak French and not Spanish, it's what you get. Deal with it. Plus, this dish is more Tex-Mex, and this is how I roll in Texas.

Bon Appétit! 

Why do I bake bread?

So I have an excuse to make JAM! Not that I'm above eating jam with a spoon, straight from the jar.

You've never done that?

Umm... no.

Oh. Me either. Hold on a sec while I wipe away any tell-tale traces of red from my face...

Next up for recipes is the most delicious, bright-red strawberry jam ever. It's actually the only homemade strawberry jam recipe I've ever seen, so I know it's everywhere on the Internet and even comes with the pectin box. But it's DELICIOUS and will keep you from ever buying strawberry jam at the grocery store.

I'll write up the recipe this next week once I get some time. In the meantime, start baking some bread so you have an excuse for jam!

Best-ever Cool Rise French Bread *Updated with Photos*

Bonjour!

The first recipe I'm tackling is my mother-in-law's Cool Rise French Bread... now does the Bonjour make sense?

Yes?

Good. Moving on.

Note: This recipe will make 2 loaves
2nd Note: I'll post pics once I upload them

Ingredients:

5 1/2-6 1/2 c flour (I use unbleached, all-purpose, and typically use around the full 6 1/2 c. It depends on the humidity here sometimes)
2 packets of Active Dry yeast (this is the equivalent of 4 1/2 t of yeast, if you use the jar).
1 T sugar
1 T salt (I use a bit less than the full tablespoon)
2 T melted butter
2 1/4 c warm water (very warm tap or slightly heated in the microwave... around 110-120 degrees)
olive oil

Directions:

In a bowl, stir the yeast, sugar, and salt together. Pour in the water and let it just sit there until the yeast starts doing its thing, which happens within about 5-10 minutes. It'll get a bit bubbly. Be careful not to get the water too hot. I've ruined 6 loaves of bread at once because I used too hot of water and not enough flour. Basically, if your water is too hot, the bread will rise A TON the first time and then not much later in the fridge. Then it will be wayyyyyy dense. Nothing is more depressing than super-dense french bread. The yeast should start to do this:

Add the melted butter to the bowl and stir it in. Admire how pretty the yellow butter looks as it swirls in.

Add about 4 cups of flour and start rotating that wrist! The first 4 cups are pretty easy to stir... it's the next 1 1/2- 2 1/2 that get tough. I pre-measure the full 6 1/2 cups and just keep adding it until I get a nice dough. You want it to hold together and not be too sticky. If it is, add a bit more flour when you turn it out onto the floured surface in a moment. You want it be elastic, but also leave the sides of the bowl. Also, you can use a hand mixer or stand mixer. I only do that if I'm making multiple recipes.

Once it's all mixed, form it into a ball and place it on a floured surface. I lay out a few sheets of foil/parchment paper/wax paper and then flour the surface... less mess to clean up later.

Fold the dough up a few times, pushing down a bit until you have formed a nice ball. All-in-all, you'll knead it for around 5-10 minutes. Cover the ball of dough with plastic wrap and a dish towel. Let it rise 20 minutes.

Uncover and punch down the risen dough. Divide it in half and roll out each half of dough. Each will measure approximately 8x15. Roll both up tightly like a jelly roll, starting with the long side. Pinch the lengthwise edge and tuck under the ends. Taper the ends by rolling them slightly with your hand. If you are not using a non-stick pan, spray it first with Pam or grease lightly with oil. Place both loaves on the pan and brush with olive oil. Cover loosely with plastic wrap.

Refrigerate the dough for 2-24 hours. The dough will rise (just about double) in this time. After taking it out of the refrigerator, let it sit at room temperature for around 10 minutes. This is a great time to turn your oven on to 400 degrees. Just before baking, lightly brush the loaves with water (this will help form a nice crust) and then make about 4-5 slashes in the top of the loaves with a sharp knife to allow the crust to expand.

Bake at 400 degrees for 30-35 minutes, or until done. The bread will sound hollow if you tap the bottom of the loaf when it is done.

Cool on rack.

Hide one of the loaves from your husband and children, or you won't get a single bite.

Bon Appétit!

Cheerfully Chaotic Kitchen debut!

After months of thinking about doing this, I'm finally putting pen to paper (well, fingers to keyboard) and starting my recipe and cooking blog. It serves as a companion to my public blog, cheerfullychaotic.blogspot.com. I love to cook and am in the process of moving from using my fancy digital camera solely on "auto" to taking it out for a spin for real, on scary settings and nerve-wracking exposures and terrifying speeds. It's rather like the way some people drive in Dallas, come to think of it. So, bear with me on the photos for a while: the simplistic and unpolished backgrounds, raw and unedited photos, and generally poorly-lit food shots. I'll get there-- I'm nothing if not determined.

It's my intent to not only share my favorite recipes here, but also to showcase some amazing recipes I've found upon wandering through the Internet and the blogosphere (crazy to think that this word has been added to our lexicon in just the past few years).

Bon Appétit!