Spicy Filet with an Apricot Orange Glaze

Posted on February 16, 2018 by Our Growing Paynes

Is it just me or does the coverage of the Olympics stateside seem to be more adverts than sport? I love the Olympics and love to see the human interest stories, people succeeding and when they fall my heart goes out to them. It used to be a lot of all this. Now it is more important for us to see giant Big Macs and sugary drinks. The last things that should be associated with athletics.

Aside from the weird spectacle of the North Korean cheerleaders who outnumber their athletes by a couple hundred it’s been fun to see how everyone is doing. We do wonder of the sanity of the skeleton racers. Who thought, hey let’s go head first down an ice run?

But it has amused me while I’ve been sick this past week. I’m finally catching up with everything. One of the downfalls of getting my life organised and scheduled is it looks bad when it goes south. Such is life! I was glad to be back on my feet in time for Valentines Day. I wanted to make a nice meal for my husband.

I found this recipe on Carlsbad Cravings for a Cajun Steak with an Apricot Orange Glaze. I adjusted it for smaller portions and what I had on hand.

It’s an easy recipe with a few steps. In a small bowl mix together a 1/2 tablespoon each of paprika, brown sugar, onion powder, and chili powder. Add a teaspoon each of dried oregano, cayenne pepper, sea salt then add 1/2 a teaspoon of dried basil and pepper.

Take 2 teaspoons of this mix and put aside in a small saucepan. Use the rest to make the marinade. To the spice mix a 1/4 cup/2 oz of soy sauce and olive oil. Then add a tablespoon each of Worcestershire sauce, orange juice and brown sugar. Coarsely chop 2 cloves of garlic. Mix well and add two filet mignon to the marinade. Set aside for about an hour.

In the small saucepan add about a 1/2 cup of apricot preserves, a 1/3 cup of orange juice, a tablespoon of soy sauce, and a dollop each of brown mustard and brown sugar.

Mix well and bring to a simmer. While the rest of the meal is cooking reduce this by half. Melt a few dabs of butter and brown both sides of the filet. Finish off in the oven at 350F/175C until desired doneness.

I roasted potatoes and sautéed green beans to accompany the steak. Drizzle the sauce over the dish right before serving,

A nice easy delicious meal to enjoy for a romantic dinner.

I did have more than two green beans, contrary to what my husband says I do eat veg! 😄

Pan Seared Chicken with Risotto Milanese

Posted on February 14, 2018 by Our Growing Paynes

Like every generation before us has said, we live in crazy times. Social media magnifies people’s behaviour, good and bad, and also allows movements to take off like wildfire. The #metoo movement has been such a long overdue and important conversation.

You would have to live under a rock to not hear the conversation. Which makes me wonder about some on social media. I’m in the process of setting up an Etsy shop to sell greeting cards with my photos so I have been doing loads of research and trying to get everything set up so I can hit the ground running. I’m being way more proactive in promoting my brand across the platforms. While I love to connect with people what I’m not looking for is to be hit on. I don’t understand it. Twitter is not Tinder people! Obviously on the scale of what a lot of us women go through it’s mild but I don’t understand that someone thinks this is ok.

Thankfully most treat this connections as above board but it’s just so weird when it happens. Even if I was single I would never dream by starting off by talking about a connection’s physical appearance. Just creepy!

Ah well, good thing I’m not obligated to respond. I’ll just keep cooking!

For this dish I thought I should actually look through my cookery books. They are not just pretty books! I really liked the risotto Milanese from a Williams Sonoma book. A great accompaniment to pan seared chicken. Here is my version.

To start the prep bring 5 cups/40 oz of chicken stock to a simmer. In a small bowl add about a teaspoon of loose saffron threads with a 1/4 cup/2 oz of hot water. Set aside to soak.

I just love that colour. In the large skillet that the risotto will be cooked in, add a couple of tablespoons of olive oil. Season the chicken thighs with sea salt and pepper. Begin browning the chicken.

Finish cooking the chicken in the oven at 375F/190C. Add a 1/2 cup of chopped pancetta and a finely chopped shallot. Sauté until the shallots begin to soften.

Slice a few mushrooms and stir in. Add 1 1/2 cups of arborio rice to the skillet cooking for a couple of minutes. Then add a half cup/4oz of a dry white wine.

Gradually add the stock a bit at a time with the rice on medium heat. Halfway through the cooking add the saffron along with sea salt and pepper to taste.

Near the end of cooking before the liquid is absorbed, toss in 2 tablespoons of butter and about 3/4 cup of freshly grated Parmesan cheese.

Once the liquid is absorbed serve with chicken and garnish with parsley.

For those that live in the cold climes, trying to get decent photos without natural light can be like trying find a yeti. But this time I tried candlelight. Why I didn’t think of this before. I have no idea.

Bacon and Chicken White Bean Soup and We Have a Houdini

Posted on February 1, 2018 by Our Growing Paynes

Our puppy boys aren’t actually puppies, they are 11 and 8. We call them puppies as they like to act like that and occasionally they teach themselves new tricks. Guinness, our 11 year old, decided to channel Houdini this morning. Because we’re still having work done on the house we put the dogs safely in a room. It usually works. Only this morning Guinness figured out how to open our sliding doors. It got a little hairy as we corralled him. It was bit bit like a comedy of people going in and out of rooms but no one could see anyone else.

Murphy has been taking this in stride but Guinness has taken to muttering at the intrusions. Definitely put out! Fortunately it will be over soon and he’ll soon get his room back. Silly sausage.

With the cacophony going on, comfort food hits the spot. Bacon chicken white bean soup fits the bill. I added bacon and chicken to this soup because they needed to be used up. Necessity being the mother of invention and all that.

In a saucepan add a half chicken breast that has been cubed and 3-4 rashers of streaky bacon that has been chopped. Sauté on medium heat.

Slice 2-3 mushrooms and chop 4-6 cloves of garlic. Once the bacon has rendered a bit add the veg to the saucepan.

Add 3 cups/24 ounces of chicken stock and bring to a simmer. Next add 2 cans of 15 ounce cans of white beans after rinsing them. Continue to simmer until the beans are cooked through. Season with se salt and pepper. A healthy splash of white wine, ahandful of fresh parsley and 4 ounces of freshly grated Parmesan finishes off the soup.

Fresh baked crusty bread with butter is a perfect companion to this soup.

I really enjoyed this hearty soup. A nice break from all the upheaval.

Steak and Mushroom Pie

Posted on November 30, 2017 by Our Growing Paynes

It’s time to get in the festive mood! It’s the fun month between Thanksgiving and Christmas. Though I’m already over the cheesy modern Christmas music. Just not the same as the standards. My husband and I had a quiet Thanksgiving as our kids were in South Carolina. My aunt very kindly invited us to her place for Thanksgiving dinner. We had a lovely meal and a lovely time. She is an awesome aunt and she’s very good to us.

Even though the weather can’t decide to be warm or cold this season there has been been opportunity for comfort food. And you can’t go wrong with steak and mushroom pie.

In a small bowl, add about 3 oz of flour and season with sea salt and pepper. Mix well. Take a half pound/8oz of stewing steak and cut it into small cubes. Toss in the flour until well coated.

Heat a couple of tablespoons of olive oil in a saucepan and start browning the steak.

Coarsely chop a shallot and a couple of cloves of garlic. Add to the pan.

Cut up enough mushrooms to make half a cup/3-4oz. Sauté in the pan then add about 2 1/2 cups/20oz of vegetable bouillon. Bring to a simmer. For seasoning and flavour I added a half cup of dry sherry and a small handful of fresh oregano, chopped. Slow cook on low for a few hours until the steak is tender and falling apart. To thicken the broth, add either a couple of teaspoons of flour or corn starch(flour) to a couple of tablespoons of water to make a slurry. Add this to the saucepan and bring up to a boil to cook the flour and thicken the broth. Adjust the seasoning as needed as sometimes the flour can dull the flavours.

Split the stew between ramekins. I made enough for two. Melt a tablespoon of butter and brush individual layers of phyllo dough to top the ramekins. Broil/grill til the top is nice and golden.

Perfect with a nice deep red wine on a chilly night!

Parsnip and Roasted Mushroom Soup

Posted on November 10, 2017 by Our Growing Paynes

I have to hand it to our son, he had his wisdom teeth removed yesterday and he did really well. Me? Didn’t sleep the night before. It’s so much easier when stuff is done to you rather than your kids. Now he gets to hear his parents telling him to eat his ice cream. Think he’ll be ok. 😊

Woke up being very happy for fuzzy socks with freezing temperatures and gusting winds. Definitely soup season! On one of our date nights, my husband ordered an amazing mushroom soup and it sparked an idea for a mushroom and parsnip soup. Their soup just had mushrooms in it with Gorgonzola cheese. Well I shouldn’t say just as it was delicious. But I went off on a tangent.

As luck would have it, the co-op had a great selection of mushrooms. Including a Japanese mushroom called maitake. Slice up the mushrooms and toss them in olive oil.

Roast them at 350F/175C until they are nicely browned. In the meantime, peel and dice 1 to 2 parsnips depending on the size. Finely chop a couple of garlic cloves. Sauté the parsnips and garlic with olive oil in a saucepan.

Add a amall handful of fresh thyme, sauté for another minute or so. Add about three cups of chicken stock and half a cup of dry sherry. Bring to a medium simmer. Once the mushrooms are roasted, add them to the soup.

Season with sea salt and pepper. Cook until the parsnips are soft and the broth has reduced about a quarter. Remove from the heat and purée until reasonably smooth.

Top with a dollop of sour cream and a bit of chive. This could easily be made vegan with a veg broth. The parsnip makes it very creamy so I didn’t have to add any cream.

Making a Leftover Thanksgiving Turkey Mac and Cheese

Posted on September 20, 2017 by Our Growing Paynes

We’ve all done it. Opened the door, peered in, shut it again. Left to wonder what exactly is in that freezer. Despite best laid plans it’s easy to lose the plot. Our freezer is nearly 6 feet tall so it’s really not a good idea to lose the plot! It got to the point where we couldn’t fit anything in and I was wondering how much money we were wasting by not using what we had.

Off I went to get clear containers to organise the meats, leaving the baskets for all our fruits and veg we had harvested. I did have to get rid of some things but overall getting it organised and knowing what the heck was in there was a success.

One of my finds was a vacuumed bag of leftover Thanksgiving turkey. So this post is either well overdue or too early for Thanksgiving. 😄. Even though we seem to be stuck back in with the sticky heat of summer we did enjoy autumn weather for a few weeks. It was wonderful and perfect for some comfort food. Mac and cheese would do the trick.

Would you believe this onion was supposed to be a scallion? We planted half a raised bed of bunching onions so you imagine our surprise to find proper onions growing.

While making the cheese sauce for this dish, cook up the pasta. Preheat the oven to 375F/200C. In a separate saucepan heat up a couple of tablespoons of butter. Coarsely chop half of a large onion and add it to the butter.

Sauté on low until the onions soften. Then add a couple of cloves of garlic, finely chopped. Cook for a couple of minutes then add about a cup and a half of chopped turkey. Season with a couple of teaspoons of fresh thyme and sage. If you don’t have fresh sage use about a teaspoon of ground sage. Continue to season with sea salt and pepper. Then add a half cup/4oz of dry white wine.

To make it a roux add 2 tablespoons of flour.

Stir continuously until the flour is incorporated and cooked, about three minutes.

Next add 1 1/4 cup of milk and heat through. Don’t boil! Once the cheese is warm enough to melt cheese add a cup of grated cheddar and half a cup of freshly grated Parmesan cheese. Stir until the cheese has melted,

Put the cooked pasta into a baking dish and add the cheese sauce. Mix well. Top with more grated cheese.

Cover and bake for 20 minutes. Uncover and brown the top of the dish.

Serve while hot. Now we try to eat small portions in our house but with this dish we all had seconds and there weren’t any leftovers! Guess we needed a break from salads. 😊

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.

Rosemary Garlic Pork

Posted on February 2, 2015 by Our Growing Paynes

Apparently we missed one hell of a game last night. We don’t have cable any more so I started the day checking out the ads from the Superbowl. I’m guessing the game was way better than the ads. I made the mistake yesterday of going to the grocery store to pick up a few things. It was mobbed. Not only was the “big” game last night but we are also now in the middle of yet another big snow storm. So there was game shopping on top of the panic shopping people do before a storm. This storm didn’t shift to the east this time so we’ll be getting a lot of snow today.

My husband lucked out with the travel and was able to come home safely. I had a good time with the kids last week but it’s great to have him home with us. I was struck the other day how much our kids are growing up. After taking them out for a light meal we drove back and bad music was playing on the radio. Our daughter decided that we needed to listen to some real music. So she put on Bohemian Rhapsody by Queen and she and I belted out the song. Slightly to our son’s dismay! She took us through the 80’s and we ended with the Cupid Shuffle dancing in the kitchen. Then we topped it off watching Master Chef Junior. Those kids are incredible cooks. We are just blown away that an 8 year old can do restaurant quality dishes and an 11 year old did up a branzino. It’s insane.

To welcome home my husband I decided to make a pork loin with garlic and rosemary. I found this recipe from Daily Dish Magazine to use as an inspiration.

Coarsely chop the rosemary and garlic. This recipe takes a lot of garlic which is fabulous. I used almost a whole bulb of garlic. Place in a bag and add about 3/4 cup of dry white wine, 1/2 a cup of olive oil, and a few squeezes of lemon juice. Season the pork loin with sea salt and pepper and marinate for at least an hour.

In a skillet heat up olive oil and pan sear the pork loin on both sides.

Finish in the oven at 350F/175C. In a small skillet heat up the marinade and begin to reduce down.

Add butter a tablespoon at a time until there is a nice balance of the wine, lemon, and butter. While the pork is resting saute some swiss chard with salt, pepper, and olive oil. Slice the pork and serve over the chard. Top with the sauce.

It goes very well with roasted potato and parsnip. It was wonderful catching my husband up with how our week went and listening to him tell us about his. 🙂

Carrot Ginger Soup

Posted on December 21, 2014 by Our Growing Paynes

The sun will be starting it’s journey back our way today. This makes me happy. I’m not a fan of the shorter days. After getting tired of not being seen walking the dogs we bought them LED lights to hang from their collars. They are super bright so that should help with the close calls trying to get across the roads. Luckily they don’t seem to bother the dogs and they have an added benefit of lighting up the area they are sniffing so I can see if they are about to eat something they shouldn’t!

With all that has been going on the past few weeks I lost track what was in the fridge. I have a bad habit of buying ingredients when we already have them because I don’t see them in there! At some point we bought a bunch of carrots and I needed to use them up. I have been wanting to try a carrot soup. It’s funny growing up the only way I liked carrots was raw. But tastes change.

I should say I only liked organic ones. I don’t know what it is but conventional carrots are always dry to me and not as sweet. I know for most things the taste difference isn’t huge between organic and conventional but things like tomatoes and carrots I find a big difference. Organic carrots seem to have more water and sweetness to them.

I found this carrot soup recipe that looked really good and adjusted it to the number of servings we needed. Their recipe said it would be 8 servings but I made what I thought was enough for 4 but it was really closer to 8 so who knows how much soup the original recipe would have made.

Finely chop a 1/4 of a large red onion and saute in about 2 tablespoons of butter.

While the onion is cooking peel and slice 3-4 medium sized carrots. You want at least two cups of sliced carrots. I think I ended up with nearly 3 cups. Add them to the onion and stir well then add 2 cups of homemade chicken stock. As it is coming to a boil grate about 2 inches of fresh ginger into the soup, season with salt and pepper, then stir well. Simmer until the carrots are tender and cooked. This took about 45 minutes for the carrots I had. Then use an immersion blender or a regular blender to blend all the ingredients. Put back on the heat and add 1/2 a cup of heavy cream.

Adjust the seasoning with salt and pepper as needed and warm up as needed. Serve with a dollop of sour cream.

Full of flavour without much difficulty. I discovered a few days later that it was very good cold as well so I will be having this in the summer as a light meal or a first course. If I had some I would have garnished this dish with chives and the chive flowers. Another thing to add in the summer when the garden is flourishing. 6 more months! Not that we’re counting or anything. 🙂

Home Cooked Food – A Cure for Long Travels

Posted on December 17, 2014 by Our Growing Paynes

It’s been a very busy year for my husband with business trips and he just did two weeks to close out the year. It was a tricky time though, what with the kids’ Christmas concerts, teacher conferences, and the like. Thank goodness for technology as I was able to record a few of the songs the kids did and we could have him on speaker phone so he could be part of the conference. Which is wonderful as he hates to miss this stuff.

As you can imagine he misses the home cooked food as well. Two weeks of sandwiches and so so hot food begins to wear a person down. So a special meal was called for. I was ready for it too because the second week was a kid free week and I don’t really cook for myself so it was fun to get creative again.

For the first course I did a cheese plate and opened a bottle of a lovely red wine. For the second I wanted to have some of his favourite ingredients. Roasted parsnips and pan sauteed Brussels Sprouts were no brainers.

At Thanksgiving I was able to pick up beef tenderloin from the farm where I got the turkey. I now have more of an appreciation of the labour that goes into perfect looking filet mignon. My knife skills being what they are mine didn’t come out perfect but they weren’t too bad. But there is definite room for improvement!

I purchased some grape tomatoes and I sliced them in half. On a baking sheet add the tomatoes, pieces of garlic, drizzle with olive oil, season with salt and pepper then bake at 300F/150C.

Bake for about 45 minutes. Unfortunately the garlic didn’t cooporate and for some reason they came out hard as rocks. So I chopped up more garlic, added some more olive oil into a skillet then sauteed this with the tomatoes. Meanwhile broil the beef seasoned with salt and pepper to medium rare. For meat that is 2 inches thick do 5 minutes on each side. Mine was thinner so I did it for less. Then rest the meat for at least 5 minutes. While the meat is resting, add a handful of shredded basil to the tomatoes and a squeeze of lemon juice.

Top the beef with the tomato mixture and serve.

It was such a lovely evening catching up with my husband. I miss him when he’s gone and there is always so much to share. Of course I had to step back to make room for the homecoming the dogs gave him! Goodness me it was like a pair of dolphins leaping about, quivering with excitement. He was licked within an inch of his life! LOL.

Our Growing Paynes

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

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