Vegetable pie

My mother's vegetable pie could easily be a main dish.  It uses cheese, so if you are not a vegan, it makes a great vegetarian meal.  I showed a picture of this a few weeks ago after a visit to RuthAnn's house, and not surprisingly I received requests for the recipe.  Mom uses Bisquick, but you can substitute your own Master Mix version if you'd like.  Here is Mom's version of the Bisquick classic:

Vegetable Pie

2 c chopped fresh broccoli or cauliflowerets
1/2 C chopped Onion
1/2 C chopped Green Pepper
1 C shredded Cheddar Cheese (about 4 oz)
1 1/2 C Milk
3/4 c Bisquick
3 Eggs
Salt and Pepper

Lightly grease pie plate, 10x1 1/2".  Cook broccoli slightly.  Mix broccoli, onion green pepper and cheese in pie plate.  Beat remaining ingredients until smooth.  Pour into pie plate.  Bake at 400 until golden brown, 35 to 40 minutes (I cook longer, more like 50 minutes).  Let stand to cool for 5 minutes.   One package (10oz) frozen broccoli; thawed and drained can be substituted for fresh vegetable.  Do not cook the frozen broccoli if used.

More adventures with steaming

When you steam rice, you need to use this little interior bucket, but with other foods, they mostly just go right into the steaming container.  I did some salmon (you need to use cooking spray on the bottom of the container to make sure it releases easily), and in 8 minutes it was cooked perfectly.

Then I tried asparagus.  Same thing.  Perfect tender crisp asparagus in no time.

The really fun thing was that the Black & Decker model we have allows you to add herbs so that the foods are subtly flavored as they steam.  I used tarragon while steaming the salmon, and a dried bay leaf for the asparagus.  Mike claimed he couldn't taste the bay, but I sure could!  The meal was delicious.  I'll share about the strawberry salad there in the picture next time! 

Do you use a steamer?

I never wanted one of these.  But then my parents downsized and sent one to me.  Now I'm not sure how I lived through a summer without one!

Between my grill, microwave, and steamer, I believe that my kitchen will stay much cooler this summer.  During the fall and winter, when I'm cozied up making stews and stir fries, I don't care at all about copious amounts of steam rising into the air; in fact, I love it.  But I was amazed by just how little steam arises from this Black & Decker steam cooker. 

Here's what I made from the rice:

Doing rice is different from doing other foods, so I'll be experimenting a bit in the next few days.

Grilled chicken...slow!

The other day, I shared with you my favorite tips for speeding up the grilling process with chicken.  But I also cautioned that there is really no substitute for slow-grilled mouth watering whole pieces of bone-in chicken.  So today I want to share my favorite marinades and sauces with you for when you have a nice lazy hazy crazy day of summer ahead of you!  Don't forget about the marinades and sauces that were listed with the fast cooked chicken too...those work for slow cooking as well.

You already know these two rules, right?
* Marinate in oils, lemon juice, vinegar, etc ahead of time
* Only add sauces containing sugar, like barbecue sauce, molasses, honey, etc for the last few minutes

Chipotle-orange barbecue sauce

Pineapple-macadamia nut sauce


Chipotle marinade and barbecue sauce (shown above)

Pineapple salsa

Red grilled chicken

Jack Daniels' barbecue sauce

Grilled chicken...fast!

Now that grilling season is fully underway, even in New England, I want to remind everyone of a few tips for keeping it moist while cooking it fast!  Chicken can take a long time to grill properly when it's full sized bone-in pieces, and nothing can really match that taste.  But when you just don't have enough time to grill it slow and steady, here are two ways to speed it up a bit.

Skewers:
Chicken skewers with pineapple sauce (shown above)
Chicken tikka

Butterflying your chicken:
Grilling chicken fast

A week of glutony!

Lemon Cake

My mother makes some of the most delicious regular old food food that you've ever had.  No nouvelle cuisine for RuthAnn...just good rib-sticking food.  Here are some of the amazing things she shares with us when we visit.

 Lasagna

 Spareribs

 

 Vegetable Pie

Happy 4th of July!

I hope you have a wonderful holiday, filled with family, friends, and grilled food!  Please remember that we are (so far) the land of the free because of the brave.