Mushroom Apple Thyme Sauce with Panko Crusted Chicken over Parsnip Mash

Posted on February 22, 2018 by Our Growing Paynes

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Mother Nature spoilt us yesterday. While we are getting snow today we had a lovely break from winter with incredible warm weather of 70F/20C. It was wonderful to be out and about walking downtown. The only downside are the guys that suddenly walk round with their shirts whipped off. Let’s just say, ahem, not always a good thing. But I loved not having to wear a coat and the dogs had a great time sniffing about on their walk.

I was in the mood for some autumn flavours this past weekend and as it is still tax season it needed to be easy. I thought it would be fun to do a sauce with apple and mushroom over chicken with a parsnip mash.

Start by prepping the parsnips. Peel and cube. Put it into a saucepan and cover with chicken stock. Bring to a boil then simmer until cooked through.

Coat chicken breasts with egg and panko bread crumbs. I usually don’t have an issue with the panko falling off but if you do, dredge the chicken in flour first, then the egg and panko. Heat a couple of tablespoons olive oil and brown both sides of the chicken.

Finish off in the oven at 350F/175C. Meanwhile slice 4-5 mushrooms, finely chop 4-6 cloves of garlic, and chop about 3/4 of an apple. It helps to have dogs to eat the rest of the apple! They are so spoilt. Add more olive oil to the skillet and begin to sauté the mushrooms, garlic and apple.

Add a healthy handful of fresh thyme. Cook until the mushrooms start to brown. Add a tablespoon of butter, a 1/3 of a cup of dry sherry and a cup of chicken stock.

Simmer the sauce until the chicken is cooked. Once the parsnips are cooked, drain most of the stock but leave about 1/2 a cup in the pot. Add 2 tablespoons of butter and about 3/4 cup of jarlsberg cheese. Mash it all together.

Place the chicken on the mash and top with the mushroom apple sauce. A very easy but tasty meal after a long day of house projects.

Croque Monsieur, Fun Food for the Kids

Posted on August 4, 2015 by Our Growing Paynes

In some of the tourist places we visited in France I came across croque monsieur. An inside out grilled cheese sandwich! The kids tried it and thought it was fun.

I loved the inspiration I got while over there. So much good food and ingredients. I got a kick out of this vending machine we found:

I mean how cool is this idea? Fresh veg, fruit, and homemade soups. Don’t get me wrong I loved the Cadbury vending machines when I lived in London but still, this was refreshing to see. Much better than these fish sticks I found:

How sad.

There are several recipes for croque monsieur, all pretty similar. I used Ina Garten’s from Barefoot in Paris as a guide. I used our sourdough bread for this. I really didn’t want to use the soft storebought white bread she recommends. I just don’t like that stuff! I needed to make 4 sandwiches so I toasted the bread ahead of time. Also, prep 1/2 cup of parmesan and 1/2 cup of jarlsberg and set aside.

In a small saucepan melt 2 tablespoons of butter then add 3 tablespoons of flour to the butter.

Keep it on the heat and continue whisking to cook the flour. You don’t want the mixture to burn.

Her recipe called for 2 cups of milk but I felt that was way too much. I decided to go with 1 1/2 cups of milk. We still had too much sauce leftover. Gradually add the milk to the flour mixture, again whisking the whole time to work out the lumps.

With the heat on medium bring the mixture to a near boil. You don’t want to have it actually boil but you need it hot enough to thicken. Keep stirring to prevent the milk from scorching on the bottom. Once the sauce thickens remove from the heat and stir in the grated cheese. Dust the top with nutmeg and season with sea salt and pepper.

Spread stone ground mustard of your choice onto half the slices of the toast. Add slices of ham and top with the other slices of bread. Then spoon on the sauce. Top with more jarlsberg cheese.

Broil until the cheese is bubbly and golden brown. Serve with a side salad.

I have to say as crazy as this dish sounded to me it was a lot of fun to eat and it was delicious.

BBQ Burgers and Family Time

Posted on August 2, 2015 by Our Growing Paynes

Every summer there is nearly a month when the kids are gone. A bit hard on the parents but it means the kids are off on adventures. They do a two week overnight camp and then we usually get them for a couple of days then they are off to Florida to see grandparents with their mother and stepfather.

While we get a break from the usual back and forth of getting the kids round we miss them like crazy. We picked them up from camp Friday evening and they had so many stories to tell. It was non stop and it was fabulous. But they were looking forward to home cooked food.

Our daughter must have missed the kitchen as she made breakfast each morning this weekend and baked cookies. Yesterday morning she kicked us out and set the table with flowers and candles. She really loves going all out.

When we picked them up they mentioned they were sick of cheeseburgers. Shoot, as that was what I was making for last night! Our daughter said oh we love your burgers so that’s ok. Phew!

It was time for something different so I thought I would make BBQ burgers. Our poblanos are coming in and I wanted to use them. Our garden has been a struggle this year but our peppers are doing us proud. I see a lot of hot pepper jelly in our future. Unfortunately we’ve used up all our Peach BBQ sauce I had made so I had to use, gasp, store bought. Peaches are showing up in the shops now so it is on my list to make another batch.

I had a pound of ground beef which is more than enough for the four of us. The only issue is it’s impossible to find decent buns that aren’t enormous. So the buns tend to dwarf the burger. I think a quarter pound of meat is more than enough but I think I’m in the minority in this country. My husband and I went without the bun. In a bowl add the meat. Mince 2-3 cloves of garlic and add that with a few teaspoons of fresh thyme. I didn’t have enough cheddar to do slices on top but I did have enough to grate for the actual burger. The amount I added was about a quarter of the meat in volume. Then add a few tablespoons of BBQ. Mix well and form into patties. Set aside. Cook up several rashers of streaky bacon and set that aside as well.

My husband brought home some fresh corn yesterday. So exciting! I love having them grilled. Very easy to do, just soak for about 20 minutes in water. Then grill for 5 minutes on each side until cooked through. When these were halfway cooked I added the burgers.

Once you flip them add sliced onion that have been prepped with olive oil and seasoned with sea salt and pepper. Add the poblanos after deseeding them. You want the peppers to blister a little but don’t go crazy. You want to grill the onions so they have the grill marks but aren’t burnt. When the burgers are almost done add slices of cheddar or jarlsberg to the burgers to melt.

Layer with BBQ sauce, bacon, onion, and pepper. Butter up that corn and enjoy! My husband did up some sweet potato and regular potato chips (fries) to round out the meal. I was stuffed. I think a bun would have sent me over the edge. I didn’t even have room for ice cream!

Bacon Cheese and Chive Muffins

Posted on February 9, 2015 by Our Growing Paynes

In the interest of avoiding a rut with breakfast I asked if the kids wanted something different from the mini quiches and waffles for breakfast. The answer was yes so I had to find something different that was easy to make and would get them through the morning without having a sugar dump. It’s hard for our daughter as this year her lunch period is the last one of the day.

I thought muffins with bacon would be fun. This recipe is part Pillsbury’s The Complete Book of Baking and part my own. I used them for a base with the basic ingredients and added my twist.

Slowly render about a cup to a cup and a half of bacon with a lot of the fat cut off. You don’t want greasy muffins.

While the bacon is cooking mix the dry ingredients together. You need 2 cups of all purpose flour, 3 teaspoons of sugar, 3 teaspoons of baking powder, a 1/4 teaspoon of cayenne pepper, 1/4 teaspoon of salt and a handful of chopped chives. It’s a good idea to actually read the recipe properly. I thought it said 3 tablespoons of sugar. Oops! Fortunately it didn’t ruin the muffins. I did forget the baking powder and I had to carefully add it afterwards. Honestly, where was my head? At this time grate fresh parmesan and jarlsberg cheese to make 3/4- 1 cup of cheese.

Add 1 beaten egg, 1 1/4 cup of milk, and 1 1/2 tablespoons of olive oil.

Now with muffins you don’t want to overwork the batter. Gently mix the dry ingredients and wet together. It’s ok if the batter is a bit lumpy just as long as the ingredients are incorporated. It will be very wet.

Fold in the bacon. This is the part where I forgot the baking powder so I had to sprinkle it over the batter then carefully fold that in.

Pre-heat the oven to 400F/205C. Spoon the batter into muffin cups, about 2/3 full.

Bake for 20-25 minutes until they are golden in colour and the toothpick test comes out clean.

Treat yourself while they are still warm and have some with butter.

Not only are these good for breakfast but they would be good with stews and chilli as well.

Cheesy Canapés to Ring in the New Year

Posted on January 2, 2015 by Our Growing Paynes

Well 2014 is done and dusted. They go by faster as we get older. I do wish I can figure out how to slow it down a bit. Ah well, I’ll just have to enjoy the ride at the speed it goes.

As usual we had a lot of fun with our friends for New Year’s Eve, letting our hair down probably more than is good for us. And as usual we had a lot of good food, enough for an army!

A few weeks ago apointgourmet posted about Thyme and Gruyere Canapés and I thought they would be perfect for the party. I could make them earlier in the day and them warm them up at the party.

I decided to use the cheeses I had on hand for this dish which was jarlsberg and parmesan cheese.

Preheat the oven to 400F/200C

It’s a good idea to prep the ingredients prior to starting the recipe. The amount of cheese needed is about 1 2/3 cups with half a cup of that being parmesan and the rest jarlsberg. Grate the cheese and set aside. Finely chop fresh thyme to give you two teaspoons and set that aside with the cheese. Add a pinch of sea salt and a few dashes of cayenne pepper to the cheese. In a sauce pan bring a cup of water and 4 tablespoons of butter to a boil. Remove from the heat and add a cup of flour. Mix well until the dough becomes smooth.

In a mixer incorporate the dough with the cheese mixture.

One at a time add 4 eggs and mix well.

Scoop into a pastry bag with a tip that has a large hole. This is my least favourite bit as the dough is thick and sticky and likes to find it’s way out the top of the bag. So annoying! And it’s hard on my hand squeezing all the dough. Create dollops about an inch in diameter and place them about 1/2 an inch or so apart. Beat one egg and egg wash the dollops without letting the egg drip down the sides otherwise the egg can prevent the puffs from rising.

Bake 25-30 minutes until they are golden brown. Now the recipe I followed said 20-25 minutes but mine weren’t golden in that time frame, I suspect because of different ovens. At any rate bake until golden.

I had also come across an idea to do apples with cheese and pancetta. So I used that for inspiration and decided to use fontina and prosciutto. Very easy, just wrap the apple and cheese and bake until the cheese is melted.

I really liked the balance of the sweetness of the apple and saltiness of the prosciutto.

Cheers!

Cuban Sandwiches and Getting Introduced to Parenting

Posted on August 4, 2014 by Our Growing Paynes

Watching the movie Chef reminded me of how much our daughter loves Cuban sandwiches. It also brought me back to her seventh birthday party. My kids were the first kids I met in a relationship, a whole new ball game.

They always say that you should wait to meet the kids but we didn’t. My husband and I knew right away we had something and I met the kids pretty quickly as a friend. Though we have very bright kids, they knew I wasn’t fly by night even though our son was 3 1/2 and our daughter was just shy of her 7th birthday. Aside from the fact that I didn’t want things screwed up because I recognised I found the one, I really didn’t want the kids to get screwed up if the adults went south. Obviously it didn’t play out that way. 🙂

I was very lucky I met them at that age, I still got to do story time at bedtime, fort building with pillows, and the kids birthday parties. The first birthday party was about 6 weeks into the relationship so I was nervous. Do I get her something, what do I get her, small gift, big gift? I found her a craft sewing kit that allowed her to make dolls clothes. She loved it. 🙂 Plus we weren’t at the drop off phase of birthday parties so there was going to be a boatload of people to meet. I had met a few people in my husband’s circle but with parents and kids we probably had about 30 people in the house.

When I got to the party I asked what I could do for help and I was tasked with making the Cuban sandwiches. Great, never made them before and these were my daughter’s favourite. No pressure! I managed it and we all had fun with the party, along with many more. We did have some trip ups with birthday parties. We made the mistake having 8 girls sleepover for our daughter’s 8th birthday. Don’t ever do that. Ever. Luckily our windows didn’t crack with the continuous high pitched screeches.

For old times sake I wanted to make the sandwiches for the kids before they went off to overnight camp. Had to get good food into them! Normally we buy roast pork along with the other ingredients but I wanted to make it special. I used this roast pork recipe as the base with slight adjustments.

This is a good recipe for the weekend as it takes a bit of time.

For the marinade I mixed 3/4 cup orange juice, juice of half a lime, 1/2 a tablespoon of ground cumin, 1/2 tablespoon of dried oregano, a tablespoon of olive oil, 4 cloves of minced garlic, 1/2 tsp of red pepper flakes, 1/2 a cup of chicken stock, and half a small onion finely chopped. Mix well.

I bought a pork shoulder that was just over a pound. Season with salt and pepper and pierce the meat with a knife on both sides to allow the marinade to really flavour the meat. Marinate a half hour on each side.

I don’t know that we can get Cuban rolls round here, I’ve never seen them but my husband made ciabatta bread for this. This was the best batch so far that we’ve baked.

Roast the pork at 325F/165C. Keep it covered for 45 minutes than uncover and continue cooking until the internal temp is 150F/65C and let it rest for at least 10 minutes. Then it’s time to assemble the sandwiches. Slice the ciabatta and lay it out. Spread mustard of your choice onto the bread. I like using the garlic stone mustard. Layer the ingredients starting with swiss or jarlsberg, then the roast pork. Then spoon some of the garlic and onion from the cooked roast over the pork. Add pickle then the ham.

Butter the outside of the sandwiches and either cook them in a panini press or on an iron cast griddle using and iron cast press. Press down on the sandwiches as they cook. Cook until the sandwiches are about half the starting size, they are golden, and the cheese is melted. Serve immediately.

After making this I don’t think I can just buy roast pork again. It is so much better homemade and the citrus with the garlicky heat is wonderful with the rest of the ingredients.

Crêpes with Roasted Vegetables

Posted on July 14, 2014 by Our Growing Paynes

Usually when we straggle through security at Terminal 3 in Heathrow we head right to avoid the perfumes and the endless clerks ready to spray you with them. Inevitably we end up at the same restaurant, get hustled through our basic food and sent on our way. Then we wander and see other restaurants that we swear we’ll remember and try the next time. This time we took a deep breath, hooked left, raced past the perfumes, and checked out the other side. We came across a French restaurant that began with an O and for the life of me I can’t remember the name. But the food was delicious. Today’s was inspired by a dish our daughter had and I’ll be making another dish my husband made. Not bad for an airport.

Her dish was similar to a ratatouille but in a crêpe form. Very basic but it worked. While all the steps are easy for this dish it does take time to prep all the ingredients. I mixed the crêpe batter ahead of time and chilled it.

Next I prepped the tomatoes to roast in the oven. I used roma tomatoes and sliced them about 1/4″ thick, drizzled them with olive oil, seasoned them with salt and pepper. I set the oven to convection at 300F/150C. I slow roasted them for about an hour.

My husband cooked the crêpes for me while I grilled the veg. I sliced onion and aubergine and also drizzled them with olive oil and seasoned with salt and pepper.

In addition to the aubergine and onion I did up wide slices of pepper. You want the grill to be relatively hot but not scorching. I was going for a nice grilled roasted flavour, not burnt!

Once the veg is cooked begin to layer the ingredients on the crêpes.

Grate a cheese of your choice that will melt well over the veg. We used jarlsberg as that is what we had but cheddar would work.

Place another crêpe on top and heat in the oven at 350F/175C until the crêpes begin to brown and the cheese melts.

Quarter them and serve immediately.

I loved the roasted tomatoes in this. I really should roast them more often. My daughter said it made the restaurant dish taste a bit one noted. 🙂 High praise indeed!

In reference to yesterday’s post about not being able to preview the post before publishing, I’ve also found that the photos load smaller even though the file size is the same, and if I want to include a link to a post I did previously I have to open a new tab, go to the dashboard, search, open the post then copy the link. And they got rid of the list of tags I used the most. Not sure what they were thinking with this change! But I’ve sent a note to the support group. Hopefully we can get this sorted out.

A Most Indulgent Grilled Cheese…

Posted on May 13, 2014 by Our Growing Paynes

I do my best to stay healthy and eat well. You know, try to avoid clogging the arteries. But there are times you just have to go for it. Throw caution to the wind and indulge. I had seen variations on the theme of adding a fried egg to sandwiches so I thought I’d some fun with a grilled cheese.

This is a BLT, bacon and egg, grilled cheese treat. I’d say I’d kept it somewhat healthy by adding the tomato and lettuce but who am I kidding!

It’s amazing how the mention of the word bacon can light a fire under someone. My husband uttered the word and I’m not sure my son’s feet touched the stairs on the way down!

After cooking up the bacon and making our dogs drool in optimism I fried my egg in the bacon fat. I love eggs fried in bacon fat but this is a very rare treat as it wouldn’t do a body good so to speak to have it too often. While the egg was frying we grilled the sandwich with jarlsberg cheese, the bacon, tomato, and lettuce. Don’t forget to butter the outside! Separate the sandwich and place the egg on one half, season with salt and pepper.

Carefully cut the sandwich in half. I recommend doing this on the actual plate as the egg is runny.

It was a my oh my kind of sandwich. A bit messy but delicious. 🙂

Don’t Let It Get Your Goat

Posted on March 11, 2014 by Our Growing Paynes

Reading other blogs definitely helps spark the imagination. I come across ingredients that I would never think of using or trying. Goat is one of them. I love goat cheese but never thought about the meat. I found some ground goat meat at our local co-op and thought now was a good a time as ever.

Of course then I had to figure out what to do with it. Because I knew I wanted cheese to be one of the components I had to come up with something that would work with jarlsberg as my husband doesn’t like goat cheese. I found this recipe for goat burgers and I adapted it to make it mine. For the burger bread I made the baguettes that we like. The crumb on it is getter better and better with practice.

I started with the carmelised onions first as those need to be cooked slowly. Heat some olive oil and toss in the onions.

Don’t cook them fast or on high heat otherwise you’ll burn them instead of carmelise them. For the pound of goat meat I chopped up a few garlic cloves, fresh rosemary and thyme, seasoned with sea salt and pepper.

Mix together without overworking the meat then add a few squirts of brown mustard and a tablespoon or so of Worcestershire sauce. Form into patties and set aside.

Add a few teaspoons of brown sugar and a couple of splashes of Worcestershire sauce to the onions and stir well.

While this continues to cook heat up some olive oil in another skillet and brown both sides of the burgers. I cooked them about 3 minutes on each side. Remove and put them on a baking tray. Add the cheese to melt.

Bake in the oven at 375F/190C until the burgers are cooked to the desired doneness and the cheese has melted. Place them on the buns and top with the onions.

Serve with the veg of your choice. We found these enormous asparagus and they turned out to be lovely even though they were hard to cook without overcooking them.

We really enjoyed the goat meat. I’ll have to find goat chops to try something else but we’ll definitely be making goat burgers again.

Setting up the iPad has gone well. I found an app to let me put a watermark on the photos which I’ll be trying as soon as I get the adapter delivered that will let me take the photos off the SLR. The only app I need to find now is one that allows me to resize photos taken with the iPad or iPhone. Haven’t figured that one out yet. Any suggestions?

Crêpes – The Savory Side of Life

Posted on September 21, 2013 by Our Growing Paynes

Crêpes are a treat we do once in awhile for dinner. My husband enjoys making them and a few years ago we bought him a crêpe pan. It also gets a lot of use for my eggs so it was a win-win. 🙂 But I’ve always been impressed that he could make these. I was also lulled into a false sense of “how hard can this be?”. So I decided I would give it a go last night. Parts of it are really easy. But I quickly learned it takes practice on the actual cooking of the crêpe. Fortunately we only need 4 good ones as it was just the two of us.

As crêpes are extremely versatile we have fun with sweet and savory. Generally we stuff ours with some sort of filling. I wanted two savory fillings this time round. I bought some rabbit sausages for one filling and chose a lovely apple for the second. The recipe I used for the batter was from the book Crêpes – Sweet and Savory Recipes for the Home Cook by Lou Seibert Pappas. Interesting fact from the book crêpes comes from the Latin word crispus meaning crisp.

The batter should be made about 2 hours before the actual cooking and it can be stored in the fridge for up to 24 hours. You can use a blender, a food processor, or a whisk. We use the blender. In the blender I place 2 eggs, 1 cup milk, 1/3 cup water, 2 Tablespoons of melted butter, 1/4 tsp of salt, and a cup of flour.

Blend for 5 seconds. Take a rubber spatula and scrape the sides then blend for a couple of seconds. That’s it. You don’t want to overwork the batter.

Cover and chill for at least 2 hours. For the rabbit filling I chopped up a couple of garlic cloves and some baby portabello mushrooms. I removed the rabbit sausage from it’s casing and tried to chop it up into small pieces. Wasn’t that easy. In a skillet with hot olive oil saute the ingredients to brown the rabbit meat.

Add a splash of dry sherry and some lemon thyme. Let that simmer to cook through. For the next filling I chopped up some sage and apples.

In a small skillet I melted about a tablespoon of butter and sauteed the sage in it for a couple of minutes. Then I added the apples to cook. I wanted the apples softened but not mushy.

I set aside the fillings and got the batter ready. Heat a dry pan until hot. Here is the first tricky part. You want to rub a bit of butter onto the hot pan. If you do it too much the batter goes all wonky and won’t spread out. Because our pan is about 9″ wide we use 1/4 cup of batter at a time. Remove the pan from the heat and then spread the batter around the pan. It needs to be poured in then tilt the pan about until it is coated.

Once the sides start browning and the crêpe can be easily lifted with a spatula flip it over and cook for about 15 seconds to finish off the top side. Remove and place on paper towels to cool off. The next tricky bit I encountered as having a pan too hot. You can end up with a jelly fish shape.

Cute but not right. It should look a bit like this:

Once all the batter has been cooked it is time to stuff them. And crêpes not used can easily be frozen for another time. I set the toaster oven to 375F/190C because we need to melt cheese. For the apple filling I placed a few slices of brie in the center of the crêpe and topped with the apples.

Fold like a burrito and place in the baking pan. I scooped the rabbit filling into the center and topped with freshly shredded Jarlsberg.

I put the rest of the cheese over the two crêpes with the rabbit. Can’t waste any cheese! 🙂

Bake until the cheese is melted and it is ready to serve.

The apple ones came out really blurry so I only have the rabbit ones to show.

The possibilities for fillings are endless with these. And it is a delicious way to have dinner. 🙂

Our Growing Paynes

A journey about cooking, traveling, gardening, and crafting.

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