Korean-Style Quick Beef and Veg

So, I promised to get back to blogging recipes. And as much as I love cooking and eating and all things food related, this is ending up being a much more difficult task for me than it has any right to be. So, be gentle on me as I slog through this.

You see, it's been a crazy few years for me. Growing kids with increasingly hectic schedules, family members dealing with life-threatening issues, job changes, and to top it all off, a move. Don't get me wrong, things aren't dire or anything. In fact, they're quite good, knock on wood. But it just makes for the type of situation where here it's coming around to the end of 2017 already and I still haven't sent out last year's Christmas cards with our change of address. THAT kind of crazy.

The other thing that I find complicating is my own sense of perfectionism. I have a difficult time doing things if I don't feel like I can do them the way I think they should be done. I like to show you pictures of all the steps of the recipes I make. I like to have a lighthearted banter in the way I write. I like the food to be easy to make and also delicious. Most of the times, those are not a problem, but right now, the first of those is giving me stress. In the house we moved to, the kitchen is really great, in terms of functionality and usability, and while it needs some renovation, that's probably about 5 years or so down the road at this point. But it's in the center of the house. And while our kitchen has always been the figurative center of our home, it wasn't the literal center before. Which may not seem like it's a big deal, or something that would affect my blogging, but...

...There's no natural light in my kitchen. Which suuuuuuuuuucks for taking pictures. Typical house lighting makes for weird shadows and altered coloring, and I'm not yet really great at photo editing. So I either have to skip all the pictures (Nooooooo! But maybe work with fewer...), take food I want to shoot to other rooms that have natural light (awkward, but yes), deal with shoddy pictures (ugh, hopefully not too often), learn how to preform miracles in photoshop (working on it), get a lightbox or other tools to enable better pictures (on my Christmas list), or just deal with that the pictures kind of are what they are and still forge ahead with the blogging while looking for ways to improve the photographic situation.

So, that's what I'm doing. Like I said, be gentle with me.

And now, back to the food!

Asian Meatloaf with Honey-Sriracha Glaze

That crazy inner kitchen alchemist inside of me has been at work again...

A couple of weeks ago, the faint whisper on the breeze came to me.  "Asian Meatloaf..." it called.  "Think garlic, onion, ginger, and miso.  Think honey and sriracha.  Think savory and sweet and spicy."  It became my siren song, invading my thoughts randomly throughout the days.  Until I was finally able to find the time and focus to make it tonight.

So.  Freaking.  Good.

Sneak Some Zucchini Onto Your Neighbor's Porch Day - Garden Zucchini Burgers

Yes, you read that right.  And yes, it's a real thing.  August 8th is Sneak Some Zucchini Onto Your Neighbor's Porch Day.  Seriously.  At least, here in America.  Google it.  I can't make this stuff up.

So...what are you going to do when you find those green garden zuccs on your porch?  

Well, you could whip up some lemon zucchini muffins, or maybe gingered zucchini carrot bread...

Or, you could make yourself these awesomely delicious Garden Zucchini Burgers.  

Spring (Grilled) Chicken

Sometimes, fate works in mysterious ways.

And sometimes, fate does its work in unusual places, like, say, at Binny's Beverage Depot.

Maybe I should explain.  Give a little background.  You see, the hubs and I have had a lot of fun visiting local distilleries, but obviously, we can't buy everything at every distillery.  Sometimes there are gems that we leave there for another visit.  And sometimes, the flavors of some of those spirits left behind stick in my head.  Haunt me, if you will, in a good way.  This is the story of one of those.

One of the distilleries that we have recently visited is Journeyman Distillery in Three Oaks, Michigan.  They make some fantastic whiskeys, gins, rums, and other spirits.  We walked out with a bottle of their Ravenswood Rye Whiskey, which my husband really enjoyed.  But the drink that stuck in my head was their Humdinger Jalapeno Spirit.  It had really surprised me!  I'm usually pretty sensitive to spicy, and tend to prefer things on the mild side, which jalapeno is usually not.  The Humdinger had all the clean, fresh flavor of a jalapeno, but somehow avoided the burn that I usually dread.  It sounds cheesy, but after that day, I continued to play back the flavor in my head, imagining the possibilities.

Sticky Chicken

I confess, I'm pretty lucky when it comes to feeding times at my house.  My kids are pretty open to trying new things (with the obvious exception of Mr. Picky), and they generally enjoy my cooking.  But it's not often that a new recipe gets a reaction like it did tonight.  My girls were practically fighting each other for more chicken...it was the Hunger Games From Scratch style!

Am I glad they enjoyed a good healthy dinner?  Absolutely.  But I'm even more thrilled because it happens to be a super-easy dinner to make.  Just takes a little planning ahead, and a little under an hour in the oven, and boom: dinner.  I've had this recipe for Sticky Bourbon Chicken with Rice on my Pinterest for a couple of weeks, and I was really looking forward to trying it.  I changed it up a little, cutting back on the soy sauce and upping the ginger, but it's a keeper for sure!

There's a Leek in my Stroganoff!

So, you know how much I like to share quick, easy, yummy dinners that my family enjoys, right?  I kind of look at this blog as a small part of my legacy...a sort of recipe memoir online that my kids will be able to reference when they're grown up and on their own and craving a taste of home.

On that note, this recipe is one that pops up for dinner probably every other week.  It takes less than a half hour, and if I set my rice cooker and have a teeny bit of prep work done, I can cut that down to under 20!  And it's the kind of dinner that wraps you up like a warm, comforting blanket of creamy deliciousness and soothes all that ails you.

I'm just going to jump right into the recipe.  The original recipe is from Jamie Oliver, which is just icing on the cake for me, since I have a minor chef crush on him.

Homemade Chicken Pot Pie

One of the most frustrating thing about being a good home cook is that I try so many recipes that a lot of times, even if my family completely loves a dish, they forget about it.  That's why, when there's a dish that they request, or that they get excited when I mention, you know it's a winner.  My homemade chicken pot pie is one of those dishes.  I'm pretty sure it is on the list of reasons that my husband asked me to marry him.  It's just that good.

The story behind the origins of this recipe are funny.  Both haha funny and odd funny.  You see, in high school, I worked at JC Penney...in the housewares department.  Most teens would prefer to be surrounded with trendy clothes, but I was in my happy place seeing all the new kitchen gadgets, designing displays matching dishes with table linens, and restocking small appliances.  But, to be honest, it was slow a lot of the time, and there's only so much cleaning, restocking, and straightening that can be done.  So, if I had finished all that and was still bored, I would flip through the cookbooks.  That's where I found the original chicken pot pie recipe...in one of those cookbooks.  And I copied it down on a piece of spiral paper that traveled with me to college and to my first house with my husband, adding notes and tweaks along the way.  Of course, that was many years ago, and all I remember about the cookbook now is that it had something to do with farms.  I changed the recipe quite a bit too, with all my "tweaks", but the method stayed the same.

Just-Like-Rotisserie Chicken

Roast chicken is one of those things that just screams "home cooking" to me.  And it's not hard to make well.  But it's also really easy to grab a rotisserie chicken at the store for a few bucks.  Which is a lot quicker and easier.  Very tempting.  Especially when you can grab one for, what, like five bucks?

Until you start to do a little research about those chickens.  Turns out, some of them are there because they were the rejects of the meat counter to begin with.  A nice way of not wasting the meat coming close to it's "sell by' date.  Others are specifically designed to be rotisserie birds, injected with a solution so that they can stand those hours under the heat lamps waiting to be bought without losing that extreme juiciness of the meat.  And the list of ingredients on most rotisserie birds is long and full of scientific names.  Sodium tripolyphosphate, anyone?  Starts to get a little creepy to realize that it's more of a Frankenchicken than Grandmama's delicious dinner's relative.

Savory Simmered Beef Ribs

I buy cows.  Well, parts of cows.  Halves, quarters...  It's a good way to go to get high quality beef for an affordable (in the long run) price.  I've always meant to do a post about buying the cow, and I swear, I'm going to get there, but not today.  But it relates to today's post because when you buy a half or a quarter cow, you might get some cuts that you aren't as familiar with, and the best value is to use all the parts.  So, with that in mind, beef ribs.

My vegan friend posted something on Facebook the other day that said something like, "So, you say you are humane because you use the entire animal?  You know who else does that?  The animal."  I get it.  But if you're reading this post after seeing the title, you probably aren't vegan.  And if you are a meat-eater, it really is responsible to not let parts go to waste.  So, on with the recipe: