Sunday dinner: Casserole that you'll actually want to eat.

All right this is pretty simple, though it takes a little bit of time.

• Three large chicken bone in breasts (they were on sale)
• A couple of chunks of salt pork (or thick cut bacon)
• One white onion chopped
• A teaspoon of thyme
• A punch of black pepper (fresh)
• A punch of sea salt (or kosher)
• Two cups of chicken stock
• teaspoon of chile powder (cayanne will be fine)

Chop the onion and salt pork and brown in a cast iron or oven safe sautee pan. Add thyme, salt, pepper. Preheat oven to 400. Add chicken breast up, on the bone. Cook for about half an hour.

• small can of V8
• can of corn
• a cup of water
• a cup of sauce the chicken and everything cooked in
• a half dozen leftover small corn muffins
• one more chopped onion
• a chopped tomato
• a minced Serrano

Shred the chicken, peel off the skin. Put the shredded chicken in a casserole or oven safe pan. Mix in everything wet. When that's done crumble up the corn muffins and put on the top of the goop. Put everything in the oven again.

p.s. if you have cheese you can add that too.

A great tip for slow cooking on a Sunday: Time your cooking around doing the laundry. Kill two birds with one stone, right? Each cycle of the washer is about 20-30 minutes and the dryer is 45-60 minutes. Tada!

Sunday Dinner: tasty stuffed peppers.

From Blogger Pictures

Well, it's been a little while since I made a Sunday Dinner with plans for leftovers. I love stuffed peppers, chile relleno, Stouffer's, and everything inbetween. I didn't intend for these stuffed peppers to come out the way they did but I am happier with the results than my normal generic stuffed peppers. Just to let you know I kind of made this recipe up as I went with stuff I just had in my kitchen.

Joshua's Texican Stuffed Peppers:

Filling:

• 1/2 package of chorizo
• 1/2 lb of ground chuck
• 1 yellow onion
• 1/4 cup Zatarain's Dehydrated Sweet Bell Peppers
• 1/2 bunch of cilantro - chopped
• 2 tablespoons of Joshua's Spice Mix - order now!
• punch of salt
• 1 10oz can of Rotel
• 1 10 can of regular gringo diced tomatoes
• 1 small box/can of tomato sauce
• 1 diced Bell Pepper
• 1 cup uncooked short grain rice
• 2 cups chicken stock

4 big Bell Peppers

1 bag of shredded "Mexican" cheese

Slapping it all together:

1. Get a pot, not huge but big enough for you to make a big batch of meat and sauce in. Start heating up the pan - medium heat. I didn't bother using any oil or butter.
2. Slice up the onion nice and thin. Brown.
3. Add chorizo. Brown.
4. Add ground chuck. Brown.
5. Throw in Joshua's Spice Mix, Dehydrated Sweet Bell Peppers, chopped cilantro. Cook everything - keep the mess moving, don't let it burn.
6. Open cans of tomatoes and sauce. Pour all that in the pot. Mix. Lower the heat and keep stirring now and then.
7. Start prepping the bell peppers. Dice one for the mix and throw that in. Take the other peppers, chop just the tops off and 86 them. We don't need them.
8. Brown the uncooked rice in another pan, like the one you make rice in. If you don't want to brown the rice, well...don't. Hell, use whatever kind of rice you want.
9. Keep the meat and stuff at low low heat. Make your rice. Preheat the oven to 350.
10. When the rice is done mix it all in with the rest of the filling.
11. Fill the bell peppers with the mix. Leave just enough room at the top for a layer of cheese.
12. Layer on a bunch of cheese. Don't be scairt of the cheese.
13. Put the peppers in the oven for about 20-30 minutes.
14. Remove from oven.
15. Eat.
16. Put away leftovers. There will be a lot of leftovers of the mix. That is good.

If try this out let me know what you think or what you changed. I think the next time I make this I will use red or yellow peppers as well as green.

Turkey: The man, the myth, the left-overs.

We picked up a pretty good sized turkey breast from the store on Sunday. I've turned into a big fan of the Sunday dinner, then again I do find spending the better part of a day in the kitchen relaxing.

So I roasted the thing and it tasted pretty good. Y'know, tasted like turkey. Then shredded what meat was left on it and made some sammiches and lo it was good. Finally I tried to figure out what to with the last of the left-overs with some help from Amanda. I was going to make a quick stew - turkey, beans, onions, garlic, tomatoes, et al and Amanda was going to make cornbread. Then I figured why not just combine it all and bake the whole mess. Amanda figured we could cook the stuff and then pour the cornbread over it and bake it all into a "turkey cobbler". It worked pretty well and worked better the next day. All in all a successful use of food though the kale we ate with it on Sunday night was something I couldn't face on Monday.

Turkey Cobbler:

About a pound of cooked & shredded turkey.
A can of beans - drained - we used black but ranchero would work well.
A can of diced tomatoes - drained
An oranger Bell Pepper chopped.
Two shallots chopped.
Several whole pickled garlic cloves & a couple of tsp of jar juice.
Amanda's cornbread mix.
My magic spice mix.

Preheat oven to 400.

Sautee the shallots, garlic, and pepper until you think they are almost done. Remove from heat.
In a big baking dish or oven safe Pyrex mix the turkey, the tomatoes, the beans, and the sauteed stuff. Salt and pepper and spice mix to taste. Pour this into the baking dish and throw it in the oven to get warmed up.

Make Amanda's cornbread mix or if you aren't Amanda just use Jiffy mix - good, quick, cheap, and tasty. I'd say that two boxes should do the trick. Take your warmed mix of stuff out of the oven and pour the cornbread goop on the top. Throw it back in the oven. Bake until done - probably 20-30 minutes. Watch the news while you clean up the kitchen then take the turkey cobbler out of the oven. Poke the center of the cornbread with a toothpick - if the toothpick comes out dry you're done. If wet throw it back in the oven and bake some more. Repeat.

Remove from oven. Turn oven off. Let turkey cobbler cool...go have a smoke. Come back. Put in bowl. Shovel into mouth. Yay! All done! Hour to make, a minute to eat.