Here's another chicken breast recipe, courtesy of the truckload of chicken in my freezer. I'm actually using it all up - only 4 pieces left!
This was an impromptu inspiration a few years ago - I had chicken, asparagus, chèvre, and arugula. What to do...EUREKA! And today I found myself in the same situation - chicken breast, a small amount of asparagus leftover from the asparagus tart I made a couple days ago, a bag of arugula, and some tasty, tasty herbed goat cheese. Plus, I had an open bottle of white wine to use up. I'm moving in 2 weeks, so I'm trying to use up everything in my fridge and pantry. Chicken broth in the cupboard...use that sucker up!
I think my favorite thing about this dish is how the chèvre starts to mix in with the pan sauce, and then the arugula catches all of the excess to make a seriously tasty little salad underneath.
My sister won't eat this because apparently they used to serve those frozen, molded stuffed chicken breasts in her sorority house all the time, and the ladies got to calling them "hamsters." So here you are, folks, asparagus and chèvre stuffed hamster over arugula!
Ingredients:
2 boneless, skinless chicken breasts 10 spears of asparagus (approx - more if you only want to use the head ends) 2 oz herbed chèvre (approx) salt and pepper olive oil 1/2 cup white wine 1 1/2 cups chicken broth 2 loose cups arugula, washed and drained
Equipment: 1 skillet or chef's pan 1 baking dish kitchen twine
1. Preheat the oven to 350 F. Pound the chicken breasts flat and lay them underside up. Salt and pepper. Cut the asparagus spears to the width of the chicken breasts. (I used all head-ends because I had enough asparagus left and I wasn't going to use it for anything else, but you can use head-ends and stalks.) Lay chèvre in slices across the asparagus.
2. Roll up chicken breasts and secure with kitchen twine. Make sure to tie them pretty tight, so the stuffing doesn't come out.
3. Heat olive oil in a skillet on medium-high. Sear chicken rolls for a few minutes on each side, so the whole thing gets a nice crust. Transfer to a baking dish.
4. Bake until cooked through, about 15-20 minutes. Meanwhile, make the pan sauce. (IMPORTANT - make sure to remove any pieces of chèvre that have oozed onto the skillet before deglazing.) Deglaze the pan with the wine, then add about 1 1/4 cups of the chicken broth. Raise the heat to high and bring to a boil. Lower the heat to medium high and allow the sauce to reduce. When thickened, add the remaining chicken broth, stir, and reduce heat to low (this prevents the pan sauce from gumming up on you while you wait for the chicken). Allow to simmer for a few minutes until sauce is a rich brown and the chicken is done. Remove twine from chicken. Divide arugula between 2 plates and place one chicken roll on each. Spoon pan sauce over. Drink some wine.
...the lemon-filled cupcakes also work quite well as a layer cake. (I had to use up the rest of my lemon curd.)
I doubled that recipe to make two 8-inch round layers. Then I sliced each layer in half, very carefully.
Only ended up using 3 of the 4 layers, since I'd already used about a third of the lemon curd on the cupcakes. This means that a full batch of the lemon curd, plus a double batch of the cake batter, will make one four-layer cake.
I also grated the zest of one lemon into the frosting, and it made a nice difference. I preferred it. Totally worth spending 39 cents on a lemon at Trader Joe's. (The real estate agency seems to have dispersed of their spare lemons.)
Still working on the frosting skills. But you know you want this:
In case anyone was wondering, I do not eat all of these baking things by myself. Gromit's human aunt and uncle came over yesterday and left with half the cake. You, too, could be the recipient of cakes, if you live in the area and are willing to come over here. (Until fall semester starts next month. Then I'll have regular access to the rest of the grad cohort, and most of them will eat anything.)
Food for thought: What if I did half a batch of lemon curd, and made raspberry filling for the other two layers? Would that be overdoing it? Or maybe apricot? I really think I want to try the raspberry. Maybe the next time my dad comes for a visit, though I don't think he's planning to be here anytime soon. He is a notorious lover of raspberry-enhanced desserts.
Thanks to a Costco trip, I have like a metric ton of chicken in my freezer. I bought that much because chicken is so freakin expensive at grocery stores in LA. Sorry dudes, but $6/lb is way too expensive for chicken. I think it's because of this Foster Farms monopoly. Sure, they say it's "all natural" or whatever, with no "plumping," but come on, it's all factory farmed chicken when you get down to it. Hello, where's the Purdue for $2.59/lb? Edged out by the chicken racket, that's where. Stupid Foster Farms mafia. Anyways, I have a lot of bulk chicken now. I love chicken, but you can only make so much baked or panfried chicken breast before you're just done. So, here's another way to use it. Another good thing is that you can make this with frozen chicken, so no "Oh eff, I forgot to thaw something for dinner...canned soup it is." The other good thing is that I usually have dried cranberries, cashews, and mayo around, so as long as I've got some celery in the fridge, I'm good to go.
I'm only slightly embarrassed to say that I spent a long time developing a favorite chicken salad recipe. It's not like this is complicated, but I tried many different ingredients before I settled on this combination. It's got that great crunchy/salty/sweet combination. I've also made this with almonds and dried apricots, but cashews and cranberries are my favorite together. I once made this for an event I catered, and shit was GONE.
I scaled it down because I didn't want to make that much. This amount is good for 4-6 servings.
Ingredients:
2 boneless, skinless chicken breasts (and water for boiling) 1/2 red onion 2 ribs celery 3 oz dried cranberries 1/2 cup cashews 1/2 cup mayo (approx.) salt and pepper to taste Bread, if desired
Special equipment - grater
1. Bring a pot of water to a boil and cook chicken breasts until cooked through and easily shreddable (about 15-20 minutes). Use 2 forks to shred. Let cool slightly (but not totally, because the flavors meld better if the chicken is still a bit warm when you add the other ingredients).
2. Grate the red onion (it will be kind of a pulp - gives a much more subtle flavor than crunching into chunks). Slice the celery ribs lengthwise and chop them at about 1/4". Give the cashews a rough chop. (You can buy cashew pieces if you want, but I usually keep the whole ones around for snacking. Plus, sometimes the pieces taste kind of dry and stale.)
3. Add most of the mayo to the shredded chicken and stir to combine. Add celery, dried cranberries, and cashews. Mix everything together. At this point, you will probably want to add the rest of the mayo (or however much it takes to coat and bind everything). Taste the mixture and add salt and pepper to taste. (I usually don't have to add much salt, if any, because the mayo and the cashews usually have enough salt.)
4. Pile on bread or a roll if you want. This is great on challah rolls and in pita, but regular sandwich bread lightly toasted is good too.
MEDIA PAIRING
The Kim Kardashian commercial for Carl's Jr's new cranberry apple walnut chicken salad. What a shit show. I love it. Technically it's not chicken salad, but salad with chicken in it, but whatevs.
I've had a single sheet of puff pastry sitting in my freezer for like 3 months. I used one sheet for some peach turnovers and haven't thought of a way to use the second sheet in the box. I was looking over my grocery list and lamenting the fact that I love asparagus, but I often don't manage to use a whole bunch before it goes bad because I'm usually only cooking for one, and I tend to overbuy vegetables in general because they're so fresh and pretty and yummy. Then, when I was in the cheese section at Trader Joe's, it came to me. Asparagus tart! It'll use up that piece of puff pastry AND the extra asparagus from ANOTHER recipe I'll probably be blogging about later this week. Plus, any excuse to use Gruyere is gravy.
I'm sure there are a bajillion versions of this out there, but it's super simple and tasty. It's also great as a meal, an appetizer, or even a side, depending on how big you cut the pieces. Great vegetarian option too. You could use all Gruyere if you want, but I think it's a little strong in that amount, so I mix it with baby Swiss. Plus, Gruyere is like...4 times more expensive, so mixing it up is a good way to get the Gruyere taste without piling like $15 worth of it on there.
Ingredients:
1 sheet of puff pastry 1 cup shredded baby Swiss (you could totally use regular swiss, but it's not quite as soft so it doesn't melt the same way) 3/4 cup shredded Gruyere about 8 oz asparagus (about 2/3 of a bunch - try to get thinner ones so they cook faster) olive oil for drizzling salt pepper
1. Preheat oven to 400 F. Lightly flour work surface and roll thawed puff pastry out to around 10x14 (you'll really only have to roll it lengthwise, since the width is already about right). Trim edges to make them even, if you want. Using a sharp knife, trace a border about an inch from the edge. Don't push all the way through the pastry. Inside the border, poke the pastry with a fork about every half inch or so.
2. Place pastry on a baking sheet and bake for about 15 minutes, until golden brown. You might want to put down a piece of parchment. I didn't have any, so I didn't bother, but it does make it a bit easier.
3. Mix shredded cheese together and spread inside the border on the pastry. Cut asparagus to fit the width of the inside section and line up head to toe, as it were. Drizzle with olive oil and add salt and pepper.
4. Bake until asparagus is tender, about 20-25 minutes. (This is sort of why you'll want to use asparagus on the thinner side - you want them to cook before the puff pastry burns. If the pasty does start to burn, lightly cover the border with aluminum foil.)
5. Cut with a pizza wheel. If you're looking for it to be a main, cut it in 4-6 pieces. For a side, 6-8 pieces. For an appetizer, I dunno, however many you want. I used it as a side, and paired it with some parmesan crusted chicken I made yesterday and an arugula salad with mini heirloom tomatoes and shaved parmesan. TASTY!
MEDIA PAIRING:
I was going to post a music video by a J-Pop band that is actually called Asparagus, but instead, I'm posting this video of a father inexplicably pelting his son with asparagus...apparently it has something to do with knocking out a loose tooth? He's very proud of his "short film."
I'm definitely one of those people who breaks up the banana bunch at the store. I've always done this. I don't need like 9 bananas. I'm only one person. I need like...2 bananas. I never thought twice about it until I saw a friend post a status bemoaning banana bunch breakers, and now I'm self conscious about it. I always look for a small bunch to begin with, but sometimes the smaller bunches are too ripe, and I am very strategic about the greenness of my bananas. Anyways, the last time I bought bananas, I thought, oh what the hell, I'll just buy a whole bunch and make sure to eat them all. Yeah, that didn't happen. So I had 3 leftover bananas getting browner and browner. When you can smell the bananas from 10 feet away, it's time to make banana bread.
This is my grandmother's recipe. She's from Hawaii. She met my (Dutch Minnesota farm boy) grandpa when they were both in the Marine Corps and he saw her hula dancing on TV. I know, it's adorable. She's actually not ethnically Hawaiian, but 100% Portuguese, which is a pretty significant ethnic minority on the islands. I think her father owned a sugar cane plantation or a pineapple farm or something. I'm really not joking.
So, my mother, and, thus, my sister and I, grew up eating a lot of Hawaii style food, which, if you had to describe it, is basically various kinds of Asian combined with Portuguese and randomly thrown-in American influences. But island food is island food, a cuisine all its own. I'd really love to open a real Hawaiian restaurant, or a Mediterrasian restaurant, to reflect the complex food influences on the Islands. Nothing pisses my grandmother off more than when places throw some pineapple on something and call it "Hawaiian." Kind of like how people like to put avocado on things and call it "Californian."
So, this is my grandma's Hawaii style banana bread. I haven't tried Courtney's famously amazing banana bread, but I don't think this will be stepping on any toes, since it's a little different. Okay, so it's basically banana bread with coconut in it, but it's delicious.
Ingredients:
1 1/2 cups sugar 1/2 cup butter (1 stick) 2 eggs 1 cup mashed banana 3 Tbsp cream 1/2 tsp vanilla 1 3/4 cups flour 3/4 tsp baking powder 1 tsp baking soda 1 cup nuts (optional, but definitely worth adding - buy the walnut baking pieces from Trader Joe's) 1 cup shredded coconut (sweetened)
1. Preheat oven to 350 F. 2. Cream butter and sugar. Add eggs and mix in. 3. Stir in mashed banana, vanilla, and cream. 4. Combine flour, baking powder, and baking soda, then add to banana mixture. 5. Add nuts and coconut and stir to combine. 6. Pour into a loaf pan. (This makes more batter than is necessary for a standard loaf, but I don't want to mess with the baking alchemy, so I usually just use the leftover batter to make muffins.) 7. Bake loaf for about 50 minutes.
Gromit and I typically walk to a nearby park in the mornings. This takes us past a small real estate agent's office, which is a converted house with a fenced backyard. Apparently their backyard has at least one lemon tree in it, because when Gromit and I were walking back from the park, there was a large box of lemons on the front stoop. "Free lemons!" said the box. "What the hell," said I. And I took home three free lemons. I don't know these real estate agent people, but I doubt they're in the line of poisoning people. It'd be bad for business. Plus, they have two big, old, fluffy collies in the backyard on the days when it isn't ungodly hot. People who bring their adorable big old fluffy collies to work can't be bad, even if the collies do try to eat Gromit through the fence.
I asked Facebook what I should do with the lemons, and then I went to campus, where our department's office manager accused me of baking too much. When I got home, I decided to take up my friend Mary on her suggestion of vanilla cupcakes filled with lemon curd and topped with a cream cheese frosting.
What you should know is that Mary has been a bad influence on me for many years now. Mary is the reason I own a single giant plastic sperm with a unibrow, purchased in Prague. It once held a milky alcoholic substance, which I was not brave enough to drink. There have probably been other incidents. Still, I trust Mary. We survived Pony Club together, including the rather memorable experience of sweeping national championships one year, the equally memorable experience of volunteering to be demonstration riders at the National Examiners' Clinic, thus giving us the pleasure of being roundly critiqued for several hours by several dozen people who pretended we were not there although they frequently pointed at us, and the still more memorable experience of being suddenly and inexplicably presented with a pile of disemboweled horse intestines in a five-star hotel in Toronto, along with a pair of surgical gloves and the directive to manually manipulate each part of the pile of intestines for the purposes of identifying exactly which sections of intestine we were dealing with, here.
Oh, I'm sorry. This is a food blog and I'm supposed to make you want to eat. Here I am dressed as a zombie! My ear fell off!
Oh. Right. Here's an angry rooster!
No? Fine. Here's an adorable pony.
His name is Dennis and he's only a little bit evil.
Vanilla Almond Cupcakes with Lemon Curd Filling
First, make your lemon curd. I followed Ina Garten's recipe. It's very easy and very good. It also gives you quite a lot of lemon curd.
I only ended up using about a third of it. (There might be a lemon pie post tomorrow.) While it's cooling off, make the cake.
This makes a 9x9 layer or about twelve cupcakes, so double it if you want more than that. I used this cake as an excuse to play with my almond flour, and let me tell you, it worked.
Have all ingredients at room temperature, oven at 350, grease and flour pans or use cupcake papers. Did I mention I didn't know that I was out of cupcake papers, so I wound up having to grease and flour my silicone cupcake pans, which was a giant freaking mess? Also that the silicone pan flopped itself partway off the oven rack somehow, so the cupcakes baked sideways and dripped batter on the bottom of the oven, so now I have burnt cake batter stuck to the bottom of my oven? I am pathologically messy, but today was bad even by my standards.
Anyway, the cake.
1 cup granulated sugar 1/2 cup butter 2 eggs 2 tsp. vanilla extract 1 cup all-purpose flour 1/2 cup almond flour 1 3/4 tsp. baking powder 3/4 cup milk
1. Cream butter and sugar well. 2. Beat in eggs, one at a time, and then vanilla. 3. Mix together flour, almond flour, and baking powder in a bowl, then slowly add to butter mixture. 4. Add milk. 5. Mix on medium speed for 2-3 minutes. 6. Pour in pans. Bake 20-25 minutes for cupcakes, probably 30 or 40 for a layer cake. Let cool.
For instructions on filling cupcakes, I'd recommend this tutorial from Baking Bites. I did the cone method.
Here's a finished cupcake, frosted with cream cheese frosting. I don't really have a recipe for cream cheese frosting - I'm a freewheeler on that - but if you need a recipe, the one in The Joy of Cooking is good.
Since the tops of filled cupcakes are...precarious, I deliberately made the icing a bit runny, and applied it using the tried-and-true hole-in-the-corner-of-a-Ziploc-baggie method, then smoothed with a butter knife dipped in cold water.
Mary suggested that there should be lemon zest in the icing as well. I didn't have any left over, but I think she might have been right. So maybe you really want four lemons for this recipe. I also left several unfilled for the boyfriend unit, who dislikes lemon (but admitted "If I liked lemon as a flavor, I would like this lemon curd.")
One day, I will learn to make pretty cupcakes. One day.
It kind of looks like it's vomiting.
...oh, right. Food blog. Not disgusting things blog. Here's Gromit!
By the way, the cupcakes were pretty delicious.
Edited to add media pairing: Inspired by the time Mary complained heartily about this movie being on TV in our hotel at some horse show or other, because, in her words, "I don't want to see two ugly people in love! Movies are for pretty people!"
The Cinnamon Rolls to Die For were made last weekend, before I went out of town for a really awesome conference. I returned home on Saturday only to find that the boyfriend unit had not eaten all of his cinnamon rolls, and they were now stale.
Unwilling to let my week-old efforts go to waste, I proceeded to make the cinnamon rolls even worse for you. And here's how!
Bread pudding! Made with cinnamon rolls!
Adjust your liquidy ingredients as appropriate to the amount of remaining cinnamon rolls...
1. Preheat oven to 350. 2. Cube stale cinnamon rolls. I had five left. Drizzle them with 2 tbsp melted butter and toss to coat. 3. Grease an 8" square pan. Bread chunks go in! 4. Mix together 3 eggs (lightly beaten), 2 1/2 cups milk, 1/3 cup granulated sugar, 1 tsp. vanilla extract, 1 tsp. cinnamon. 1/2 cup raisins optional (I didn't have any). Pour this over the bread cubes. Poke the bread cubes with a spoon, repeatedly, to ensure that eggy mixture is absorbed. 5. If desired, sprinkle nutmeg over the top.
I'm not a huge bread pudding fan, but this came out pretty well. Nicely crunchy on top, gooey on the inside. And it's certainly preferable to throwing out the stale rolls.
I think this would go well with vanilla ice cream (you know, because it's not bad enough for you already). Boyfriend unit suggested maple syrup, because it is vaguely reminiscent of French toast. I also think a cinnamon brown sugar syrupy sort of glaze would be nice drizzled on top, but only for those folks who have super durable pancreases.
Rather pretty, no? I need to rig up a more attractive photo backdrop. Stupid tiny apartment kitchen.
Fire up the butter churn, kitchen pioneers! It's time for another baked good that just might kill you!
The other possibility is that someone might kill you for these cinnamon rolls. I wouldn't, because cinnamon rolls are like donuts to me: I like them, but once every nine months or so is okay. The boyfriend unit does not have this relationship with cinnamon rolls. I made the damn things once four years ago because I was unemployed and bored, and I haven't heard the end of it since then.
"When are you going to make those awesome cinnamon rolls again?" "Hmm, maybe I should go to Cinnabon. But their cinnamon rolls make me feel sick afterwards. I wouldn't have to go there if you would make those awesome cinnamon rolls." "You know what you haven't made in a long time? Those awesome cinnamon rolls." "Do we need anything else from the grocery store? Like ingredients for the cinnamon rolls? I'm going to get some cream cheese, 'cause you'll need it for the icing if you feel like making them." "You don't HAVE to make the cinnamon rolls...but I thought you loved me." "Cinnabuns? Cinnabuns? Cinnabuns?"
I usually whip these out once or twice a year, typically when his parents are in town, because they're obsessed with the things too. We've learned, in fact, not to let Boyfriend Unit's mother near the icing. Left to her own devices, she will secret away with the bowl and a spoon, then spend the next four hours predicting her own imminent demise. (I'm handy with icing.
Like most breads, these are extremely labor intensive and difficult to pull off if, like me, you have a tiny apartment kitchen. But it's worth the effort, or at least it's worth the effort once or twice a year.
My cinnamon rolls are essentially the recipe from this website, but that version tells you to do things in an illogical order, so I'm going to write things out the way I do them (I've made a couple of minor ingredient changes as well). She also says the recipe serves 12-15, but I usually come out with closer to 18 or 20. I'm sure you could halve it. Alternately, if you can spare the pans, you can prepare this all the way up to the second rising, then freeze. Put the frozen pan on the counter before you go to bed and it'll be thawed, risen, and ready to bake in the morning.
Before you attempt this, go to the grocery store and buy at least two pounds of butter. You'll be needing it. I really have tried cutting down the heart-staggering amount of butter here. It just doesn't work.
The Dough 2 packets active yeast 1 cup 105-110 degree water 1 tsp granulated sugar
Add yeast and sugar to water; set aside to proof.
1 cup milk - scald it (aka put in saucepan over low heat until it starts smelling a bit milky and/or forming a skin on top. Careful not to let burn. Remove from heat). While the milk is cooling down, add: 2/3 cup butter (stir to melt) 2/3 cup granulated sugar 2 tsp salt
Once the milk is cooled down (usual test: you should be able to hold your hand comfortably against the bottom of the saucepan), add: 2 eggs, lightly beaten The yeast mixture
Stir all this together, then gradually add: 4 cups flour
Beat until smooth. If you're using a glorious heavy duty stand mixer, as I am...
[celestial chorus]
...this is when you want to change from your paddle attachment to your dough hook.
If you're using a cheap hand mixer, this is a good time to switch to your hands and/or a big wooden spoon.
Stir in enough flour until the dough is stiff. This is usually between 3 and 4 additional cups, so yes, you may need up to 8 cups of flour.
Knead for 10 minutes. I do this by hand even if I've been using my dough hook.
Place dough in a greased bowl, turn to coat, cover with damp cloth, put it somewhere warm and let it rise until doubled in size, about two hours. I like to spray the bowl with my off-brand Pam, roll the dough around in there until it's shiny too, pop the damp cloth on there and then ensure I have a warm place by putting folded dish towels or pot holders on top of my toaster oven, balancing the dough on top, and running a medium toaster cycle.
After the dough has doubled, punch down and let rest for five minutes. During this time, you should make two bowls of cinnamon sugar.
Bowl #1 should have 3/4 cup granulated sugar, 3/4 cup brown sugar, and 3 tablespoons ground cinnamon.
Bowl #2 should have 1/2 cup sugar and 1 tablespoon of cinnamon. Set these aside.
The Rolling of the Dough If you have limited counter space, as I do, I recommend dividing the dough in two. Flour your work surface and your rolling pin, and roll out the dough into a big rectangle, like so:
The more square your corners, the better. As for thickness, I like to go about 1/2 inch. The thinner it is, the more times you roll it over; the more times you roll it over, the more layers of filling you get.
Melt 1/2 cup butter. If you're doing the dough in two parts, only use half of that here (so, 1/4 cup of butter per half of dough). Spread it over the entire surface of your dough:
And then, grab Cinnamon Sugar Bowl #1. Again: half the bowl if you've divided the dough, all of it if you haven't. You could also add chopped nuts at this time (I imagine pecans would be best), but I am not allowed to do this because the weirdo boyfriend unit doesn't like nuts.
Spread it around.
You want to go as far towards the left and right edges as possible, but leave a bit of space at the top and bottom edges, or else it'll spill when you...
...roll up the dough. Seal the last roll/fold with a little bit of your melted butter.
I recommend having a dog in the kitchen. It will lick your spilled sugar off the floor before you step in it.
Now we'll cut the roll into buns. Here's where I add a slight disclaimer: my pans are different sizes, so I didn't divide my dough evenly. We're looking at the bigger half here, so I've got 12 rolls in all. The smaller side of this dough yielded 8.
Grab another 1/2 cup of butter. Melt it. Portion it into the bottoms of the pans. Then portion in Cinnamon Sugar Bowl #2, like so.
Then you arrange your rolls in what is, for the purposes of this photo, a completely different pan:
Cover and let rise again until big and puffy, 45-60 minutes. (Or, if you're freezing them, this is the point at which to do so.) Here they are, all big and puffy:
While they're rising, preheat the oven to 350. Bake 25-30 minutes, or until golden brown.
The Icing 4 oz (half a block) cream cheese 1/2 cup butter Melt 'em together in a large saucepan. Remove from heat and add: 3 tbsp milk 1 tsp vanilla Approx. 4 cups sifted confectioner's sugar (adjust this and the milk depending on how runny you want your glaze). Repeatedly yell at and/or physically threaten boyfriend unit, who will undoubtedly be trying to stick his fingers in the icing.
I personally think the icing should be refrigerated, and that the buns keep better un-iced, but drizzle at will should you so desire. Otherwise, you can chip out refrigerated icing, place it atop a roll, and microwave for 20-30 seconds to melt and warm the roll. You really do want to eat these warm for ultimate gooeyness. And they are gooey. My god, are they gooey.
Even I, an admitted non-lover of cinnamon rolls, adore these. But they will kill you. I've never added up the exact amounts of butter and sugar used in this recipe. I just don't want to know.
Media pairing: I didn't take this video, but I do want to point out that I have been enjoying OK Go since my freshman year of college, 2001, long before their first album even came out and long before the treadmill dance. On the whole, their music has never been so spectacular, but they have always put on a fantastic live show, complete with rock star antics and boy band dancing.
I totally just made that name up. I have no idea if there is a specifically Minnesotan way of making baked beans. All I know is I got this recipe from my aunt, who is über-Minnesotan, so I've decided the beans are too. These are seriously the best baked beans I've ever had. I know that doesn't sound like such a feat, but dudes, these are awesome. I really like that they have 3 different kinds of beans in there, so it's not just a mush of brown goop. The lima beans and kidney beans hold their texture pretty well, and the color contrast gives these things a much more appetizing appearance. Also, they have bacon and ground beef. You had me at bacon, but the ground beef is really tasty in there.
Apologies to the vegetarians, because this is not your dish. Amber, I know you only eat animals that you kill yourself for the most part, so I would seriously consider stalking some cows and pigs (and investing in a smokehouse) so you can make these beans.
I made these for a 4th of July barbeque, and it makes quite a bit, so if you're only cooking for a few people, I would cut the recipe in half.
Ingredients:
1/2 lb thick-cut bacon 1 small onion, diced 1/2 lb lean ground beef 1/2 cup ketchup 1 tsp dry mustard 3/4 cup brown sugar 1 tsp salt 1 small can lima beans (if you can't find the small can, just use 8 oz of a regular sized can) 1 can dark kidney beans (16 oz) 2 cans (32 oz total) B&M brand baked beans (or you can use one 28 oz can if you can find it)
Yes, I know, I was amused to find out that one of the ingredients in my family's baked bean recipe is...baked beans. But, they're the basic baked beans, not the fancy exotic grillin' beans or whatever. If you can't find B&M brand, just try to find some that aren't too...fussy. None of this hickory smoked maple bacon brown sugar stuff, because you'll be adding a lot of those flavors anyway. Also, I would avoid getting the maple or brown sugar bacon, since these beans are already plenty sweet.
NOTE: I just make these in a large cast iron pot and transfer that directly to the oven, but if your pot isn't oven safe, you can always just transfer the beans to a deep baking dish or casserole before baking.
1. Preheat oven to 350 F. Cut the bacon into about 1 inch pieces and fry. Resist the urge to forget the beans and just eat the bacon.
2. Remove bacon with slotted spoon and set aside. Cook onions in the bacon fat. Luxuriate in the smell of awesome.
3. Remove onions with slotted spoon and set aside. Brown ground beef in bacony-oniony fat. Once beef is browned, return bacon and onions to pot. Remove from heat. Take a moment to appreciate this wonderment.
4. Add ketchup, mustard, brown sugar, and salt. Stir to combine. Add beans. Marvel at the fact that lima beans are actually a rather lovely color, and that one might be inclined to paint one's kitchen lima bean green.
5. Stir to combine and bake (uncovered) for 45 minutes to an hour. Stir periodically.
Before baking:
After baking. These buggers are also awesome reheated the next day.
MEDIA PAIRING:
Well, there's always the campfire scene from Blazing Saddles, but I think I'll avoid that one. Instead, here's an extended section of a glorious scene from Dennis the Menace (1993). Oh, Christopher Lloyd, I heart you.
