Hater Tater Tot Casserole

Actual IM conversation from yesterday afternoon.

Brandon: what do you want me to cook for dinner tonight? i will make anything you want. ANYTHING YOU WANT.
Jen: whatever you want to make. the simpler the better.
Brandon: interesting. i am surprised you didn't take advantage of the situation.
Jen: and what? ask for tater tot casserole?
Brandon: and ask for tate... haha i was JUST typing that!
Jen: believe me, that was the first thing that came to my mind, but i wouldn't force you to make something you hate
Brandon: don't worry - i will kick it up biggie style
Jen: i challenge thee!! kick up tater tot casserole!!

So, the back story here is that tater tot casserole is a childhood favorite of mine that Brandon has long derided as flavorless and too boring for him. Not to mention the fact that the crowning glory is tater tots, which for some ungodly reason he does not enjoy. The rest of the components are ground turkey, corn, and cream of whatever you choose soup (I always pick mushroom). I have made it for myself a couple times when he was out of town, but he has never tried to make it for me himself.

His first order of business was to make it into two separate dishes so that we could have freshly baked tots for tonight and tomorrow night rather than soggy leftovers.

In his version, Brandon decided to use an Italian sausage for the meat layer.

The second layer is where the bulk of the kickin up kicked in. Instead of just corn, Brandon whipped up a batch of his succotash, including zucchini, poblanos, and red peppers. He seasoned it with a bit of garlic salt and sauteed the veg, then added it to the corn. (Still steamy in the pic below!)


The third layer is the cream of whatever you want soup. Brandon made the inspired choice of cream of potato. He also went a bit dirty and used one can per dish.


As you can see in the rear dish below, he used some red pepper flake on top of the soup. And finally, the completing layer - the tots. We picked extra crispy for this experiment.

The finished product! We cooked it at 400 degrees for about 23 minutes, but tonight I think we will make it longer for even more crispiness.


Here's what it looks like inside. Wowwwwwwwwwwwwww... it tastes even better than it looks!

Smoked Pork Three Ways

One of the best investments we have ever made is the propane smoker. Smoked meats are always so delicious and kick up the flavor of any meal. Last week Brandon smoked a pork loin. It took about 4 hours. He used a rub that Julie and Erich brought him from Canada, and then added some of his own seasonings, as he does with pretty much every recipe he tries. He smoked enough meat for the bulk of the week and was able to make three unique and wonderful meals out of it.

The first was sliced pork with hominy, artichoke hearts, and cotilla cheese. He used the La Victoria red taco sauce for a little added flavor.


The next night he threw together an amazing salad with the chopped pork, spinach, sun dried tomatoes, and again sprinkled with cotilla cheese.

Finally, we had some delectable quesadillas with flour tortillas, Mexican blended cheese, white beans, and zucchini slices.

All in all it was quite a successful week and fairly simple!

Out Of the Kitchen and Into the Fire

This is a bit of a silly bonus blog to highlight an awesome idea that turned out really delicious. The pics are a bit fuzzy because we were outside in the dark, but I think the idea comes through!

Last night after a failed attempt to have a bonfire at the beach (WHY was it already so packed by 5pm??) we ended up at my childhood home, enjoying a weenie roast in my parents' backyard. After all the delicious hot dogs and snacks, we whipped out the s'more fixings. The magical treat that resulted was a collaborative effort. Carrie brought all the basics, and then Julie regaled us with the tale of her sister making s'mores using Peppridge Farms Pretzel Thins instead of graham crackers. I thought that sounded amazing because the only thing I love more than chocolate and graham crackers is chocolate and pretzels. So, inspired by this idea, Deanna brazenly placed pretzels on her chocolate in the middle of her s'more, thusly:

Here's a closeup of the finished product.

Super flippin good.

I'm Corny, Corny, Corny, Corny... and Chowdery

Here's a quickie because we haven't done much interesting cooking lately but we've been itching to blog!

This weekend we threw aside any semblance of propriety and had an all out dirty bbq. The menu included home made burgers, twice baked potatoes, baked beans, and grilled veggie succotash. We're not going to blog about all that nonsense because it was all pretty basic, but we will blog about what happened to the leftover veggies. B decided they would make a pretty awesome corn chowder. In addition to corn, it included zucchini, pablano peppers, and red bells. He charged me with finding a fairly low cal recipe, and I think this was a pretty good one. We used 1% milk and the low cal Trader Joe's organic stock, so I think that brought the calories down a bit to 140 per half cup. He also added 1 tsp each of garlic salt, regular salt, pepper, and red pepper flake.

It was super easy because it was all done in the slow cooker. B chopped the potatoes Sunday night and kept them in water overnight, then threw everything except the veggies in the CrockPot yesterday morning. It simmered on low all day. When we got home he used his handblender and mixed it up a bit, then threw in the veggies and let it simmer on low while I worked out.

Here's the delicious final result:

I am madly in love with this soup. Sooooo good.

Frittata (AKA quiche's retarded Spanish cousin)

We are always wasting eggs because we make the mistake of buying a dozen when we need two, so we started buying the liquid eggs in cartons. This time around we went with the Kirkland Egg Starts found at Costco. They work really well for baking cookies as well as Sunday breakfast scrambles, and the idea would be that we would waste far less. Well, the expiration date came around and Brandon noticed we had two full cartons left. This inspired him to whip up a frittata for dinner. Had he ever made one before? Hell, no! Would that stop him? Hell, no! He enlisted me to look for a basic frittata recipe, so I found this one that uses a Dutch oven, which I knew B would like.

This was incredible. It was one of the tastiest egg dishes I have ever had. The sausage is so savory, I cannot recommend Cantella's enough. One sausage is 140 calories, which is unbelievably low. I think Brandon picked the perfect combination of veggies that really complemented each other. If he had added any more it might have been too much.

Ingredients:

• one carton Kirkland Egg Starts
• 1 Cantella's Chicken & Turkey w/Sun Dried Tomatoes, Black Olives, & Feta sausage, finely chopped
• 1/2 cup crumbled feta
• 1 spear broccoli, including stalk, finely chopped
• 1/2 pablano pepper, chopped
• 1 zucchini, chopped
• 5 sun dried tomato halves, sliced
• oregano
• garlic salt
• red pepper flake

Preparation:

1. Sauté sausage until brown.
2. Add broccoli.
3. Wait 2 minutes, add zucchini, tomatoes and peppers.
4. Remove from heat and cover for 5 minutes.
5. Stir in eggs and spices.
6. Place in oven for about 20 minutes (use the toothpick test to see if it's done).
7. Remove and let set for about 5 minutes.
8. Slice and serve.

In the Dutch oven right after it came out:

Obligatory closeup:

Cross-section slice:

The one and only complaint I have is that I wanted to eat the entire thing myself. So. Freaking. Good.

Fakisukiyakisoba

Yakisoba is one of the faves in our household, so last week Brandon wanted to whip some up for us and realized the fresh noodles we had purchased a while back had already gone bad. We usually buy the noodles at the grocery store over by the tofu and other weird meatless products. When we stopped by the store to pick up some more, he also grabbed some extra firm tofu and told me he would be cooking it up with the chicken. I was hesitant, but I don't really have a say, so I reluctantly agreed I would try it. Then we came upon this Sukiyaki sauce in the Asian foods section, and he was intrigued. He made the executive decision to put back the noodles and try that sauce with regular pasta. The result was interesting and quite delicious.

Ingredients:

• 3/4 package spaghetti
• 1/2 bottle Sukiyaki sauce
• 1.5 frozen chicken breasts
• 1 package shelled edamame
• 1 bunch asparagus
• 1 red bell pepper
• 2 zucchini
• olive oil
• 1 head roasted garlic
• red pepper flake

He cubed the chicken and then pressed the excess moisture out of the tofu and cubed it, as well. All of that was cooked in a skillet with olive oil and one head of roasted garlic and red pepper flake. The red bell was then tossed in with the mix while the asparagus was microwaved for 1 minute and 45 seconds. As an interesting time saver, he boiled the edamame in the pasta water, then cooked the pasta in the same pot. As the zucchini had been previously grilled, he just added it at the end. All of that magical deliciousness was then tossed with the Sukiyaki sauce.

The final product isn't too exciting looking but was very tasty and satisfying! The flavor of the sauce was much more subtle than our usual, and the combination of the vegetables was great. I am not a fan of tofu as a rule because of the consistency, and I can't quite understand the point of including it because it doesn't taste like much, but it was fine. It added more protein and I think that's what helped make it so filling. B was also not happy with the consistency and would have liked it to turn out firmer. He also says he would much rather use the packaged fresh noodles and the sauce that comes with them, but this was a nice change of pace.

The Great Salsa Adventure

When Brandon and I started dating he took me to a magical hole in the wall Mexican restaurant called Red Chile in Cerritos. It was pretty close to both of our houses, so we went there quite often. The food is very good, but the biggest standout is the salsa. We believe it's made on the premises, and they store it in big milk jugs. Many a time he pondered what it would take to steal or buy one of those jugs, but he never followed through. It's a blended salsa roja rather than a chunky fresh salsa. Since the restaurant is pretty far from where we live now, we very rarely get a chance to indulge in this delicious salsa, so Brandon has been on a quest to find something similar ever since. This past weekend he finally tried his hand at making it himself. He succeeded.

This was his first attempt at salsa and the result makes me suspect he's got a bit of Mexican DNA hidden in him somewhere. At first he bought some fresh tomatoes but changed his mind and switched to canned, stewed, in order to pull out a deeper flavor. He ended up making two batches. When I tasted the first batch he asked what was missing, because the flavor was THERE, immediately, but there was something else missing. It was the heat. Salsa should be spicy going down, but the heat should also linger on the tongue for a while rather than just disappear. He considered putting in a third jalapeño, but I suggested a good old Chipotle minicube. That did the trick. It was absolutely perfect.

Ingredients

• 1 28 oz can whole stewed tomatoes
• 1 6 oz can tomato paste
• 2 whole jalapeños
• ½ white onion
• 2 tbsp garlic salt
• 1/2 tbsp sugar
• 1 tbsp oregano
• 1 Knorr Chipotle minicube
• juice from 1 key lime
• 4 dashes Crystal hot sauce

Throw it all in the food processor, tomatoes and paste first, then the dry ingredients. Pulse until desired consistency is acheived.

Serving suggestion:

Closeup shot (Travis's favorite part of the blog):

I am rating it as healthy because the salsa itself doesn't really contain anything bad. I used it on a chicken and spinach salad last night, which was healthy and zesty. However, if you eat it with chips... you're sliding head first into the dirty zone, my friend. It's well worth it, though!

Hummus? You don't even know us!

We love hummus in the Littrell household. I had been wary of it for a long time because my one and only experience with it long ago had been an overly garlicky mess, but Brandon was flummoxed because he knows how much I love garbanzos. Once he finally convinced me to try it again, it was a much higher quality one and I was hooked. Since then I have tried all kinds (even an edamame hummus - YUM) but we rarely buy it because it costs so much for a tiny tub. Brandon decided to take the hummus by the beans and make his own. Since we were headed to a Super Bowl party yesterday, what better manly treat could he bring?

Brandon's idea was to try making two different kinds: garbanzo and white bean. We had pretty much all of the ingredients on hand except the tahini, so we picked up a container at Trader Joe's. His first step was to roast the garlic, hoping to combat my usual annoyance with raw garlic. However, when he started chopping the bulbs, he noticed the had gone bad. I pointed out he'd had that garlic since Thanksgiving, which for some reason he hadn't realized. I have no idea how long garlic lasts but I figured it wouldn't last that long! Nutter. Anyway, he made up for it by using some garlic flavored olive oil instead of plain. The batches turned out pretty big (about 4.5 cups each), for super cheap. The tahini was the big expenditure at about $3 for a small container and each can of beans cost $1. However, for the price of just the tahini we would usually only get a container of the same size of hummus. What a savings!

Ingredients for garbanzo hummus

• 2 cans garbanzo beans
• 6 tablespoons tahini
• 3-4 tablespoons garlic olive oil
• juice of ½ lemon
• salt to taste
• B's special spice mix (equal parts garlic salt, chili powder, red pepper
  flake, onion powder, dried oregano)

We garnished this one with feta, fresh thyme, and the spice mix.

Ingredients for white bean hummus

• 2 cans white beans
• 6 tablespoons tahini
• 3-4 tablespoons garlic olive oil
• 5 marinated sun dried tomato halves
• juice of ½ lemon
• salt to taste
• B's special spice mix

This one is obviously garnished with sun dried tomatoes.

They were both very tasty, but the consensus was that the white bean was better because it was a little more flavorful. We served them with the awesome flat bread from Trader Joe's. I believe it is Trader Joe's brand and then the name is Far East or something. I will double check tonight and edit.

I am rating this one as healthy and dirty, because overall it's pretty good for you, but it's so delicious you're apt to eat WAY too much!

Brandon's Dirty Breakfast Mollete Special

One of our favorite local restaurants is Taco Mesa. They have a breakfast special that is not on the regular menu but seems to be available every day called a mollete. This is one of my favorite breakfast items, and the one at Taco Mesa is made with ham or bacon and pinto beans, topped with an egg and cheese. They use half green and half red sauce. We have also had a more traditional style at Taco Rosa's magnificent Sunday champagne brunch, which has black beans, salsa, and cheese.

So, in keeping with Brandon's new resolution to make us breakfast every Sunday morning instead of going out, he wanted to attmept to replicate this meal. We found some really soft, fresh bolillos at the Albertson's bakery. Instead of ham or bacon, B continued his sausage kick and used the chicken andouille. Rather than regular pintos, we went with Ranch Style Beans with jalepenos. The eggs were overeasy, and the whole thing was then covered with regular red enchilada sauce. The final touch was a sprinkling of shredded jalepeno jack cheese. Then he popped them into the microwave to melt the cheese a bit. This made the egg a little harder on the outside but once pierced they oozed properly.

The only misstep in this yummy dish was that in addition to the enchilada sauce, Brandon drizzled a bit of the juice from the beans, so the whole thing was a bit wetter and soggier than we would like. I also liked the sausage quite a bit but it made it the tiniest bit harder to cut through all of the ingredients than when ham is used. Otherwise, the taste combinations were really good. Taco Mesa still comes out ahead, but for a homemade meal it was definitely worth it.

The pic doesn't quite do it justice, but here it is:

Barley, oops, Regular Risotto

A while back, Brandon decided he wanted to start experimenting with barley, so he found a few great sounding recipes from the Food Network site. While going through our collection of recipes trying to decide what to make this week, I came across this one for Barley Risotto with Roasted Winter Vegetables.

We headed to Trader Joe's, assuming barley would be easy to find there. Eh, not so much. We picked up some of the other ingredients, including the butternut squash, and figured we'd find the barley somewhere else. For some reason, B is totally opposed to Whole Foods (he claims the people who shop there are too douchey) so we only looked at Albertson's, to no avail. He gave up very easily and decided to adjust the recipe just using arborio rice instead. To my surprise, the rice had less calories than the barley.

We doubled the recipe so we could eat it all week. Other changes:

• omitted celery root
• used kale instead of mustard greens
• used frozen chunks of butternut squash
• added sun dried tomatoes
• added some red pepper flake and garlic salt
• only used a maybe 4 tablespoons of olive oil to sauté the onion and roast the carrots and squash, rather than the 8 tablespoons

Also, B has some aversion to not having any meat at all in his meal, so he decided to throw in one sausage, finely diced. In a bit of a callback to last week's jambalaya, we were very excited to find a chicken andouille at Trader Joe's. We actually bought it to use in this recipe for breakfast Sunday morning (it was soooooo good), so we had some leftovers. [Side note: He took them out of the package and put them in a baggy, but he claims they were only 160 cals each, so I choose to believe him.]

Here's a pic of the incredible final product:



It was insanely delicious. I am a huge fan of butternut squash to begin with, and it really added a great little zing. Brandon is not much of a fan, and feels that it would have been better had we used fresh and roasted it with the skin on rather than frozen. The kale has also become a fave of mine; many props to Julie for introducing it to us. We put it in a soup a couple weeks ago, and it was just as good in this meal. It stays firm and crisp, and the flavor is a bit spicy. Unfortunately, B has a problem cutting it up, though, so the pieces are WAYYYY too big. However, that's the one and only complaint I have about this meal. I am still very curious how this would taste with the barley instead, but I guess the selling point on the barley would be the nutrition rather than the flavor.

According to my calculations, this actually turned out to have less calories than listed on the recipe, coming in at around 315 per serving. This was despite the added sausage! The one and a half cup servings aren't huge, but I found it very filling.

Brandon always says that he doesn't understand why people fear risotto and seem to think it's complicated or difficult, when all it takes is a lot of stirring. Don't be afraid to give it a shot! I even helped with the stirring for a while. Super easy!

Cheater Jambalaya

Now, on to the first recipe share! This one falls under the category of souped up found recipes. Brandon can never leave well enough alone when I bring him a recipe, and this was no exception. We had been discussing trying to make a healthy version of jambalaya and I came across this recipe on Delish. It sounded pretty good and the numbers looked great to me, but of course B was less than impressed. So, he took it upon himself to add a few items. His first instinct was to add some celery, but as I am not a huge fan he dumped that idea and went a different route as we passed the frozen vegetable aisle. A bag of chopped spinach jumped into the cart, followed quickly by a bag of black eyed peas. This was a bit of a risk for us because he had never tried preparing them before, let alone frozen, but they seemed right at home in the southern dish. Thankfully, the gamble paid off big. The peas give the meal a bit more heft, and are a perfect compliment to the earthiness of the brown rice. Topped off by a few dashes of Zatarain's seasoning and Crystal hot sauce, the dish really came together.

The other difference is that, like the reviewers on Delish, we were unable to find a turkey andouille so we just used Cantella's pork andouille which is fairly low cal per serving and really tasty. I recalculated based on all of our changes, and it's about 450 per serving.

Here's a picture of the finished product (in Brandon's new Dutch oven):



And here's a closeup:

"What's a Blog??"

Welcome to A Sous Chef's Nightmare. This blog is inspired by Julie and Brandon's desire to share their recipes and ideas with each other, and now with everyone else! I'm Jen, Brandon's wife, titular sous chef, and ghost writer, and Julie's co-worker/soulmate. Brandon liked the idea of the blog but doesn't have the time or inclination to write entries himself, so I volunteered to step in. After a couple of years of bringing food to work to share with each other, Julie finally decided we needed a place to keep track of all the cool stuff she and Brandon come up with in the kitchen. I am the lucky recipient of all their delicious creativity, but my place in the kitchen is also well defined: find recipes or make suggestions, help with any prep that won't cause my clumsy hands to become charred or mutilated, stay out of the way, fill my belly, clean up after. That last part is my biggest challenge. The food may be amazing but WOW the messes are legendary. How does splatter end up on the top cupboards? I will never know, and at this point I don't really care. Bring on the disasters as long as the food is this good!

In general, we attempt to keep our meals in the healthy/low cal range, but on occasion we dip our toes into what we like to refer to as the dirty. Brandon can be something of a dirty genius, often kicking up a fairly innocuous meal into something smothered in all kinds of creamy, cheesy, dirtiness. These will be few and far between, I assure you.