Tag Archives: cooking

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Slow cooker Chicken Cacciatore

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This is a great comfort food meal you can make in the morning and have it ready when you come home from an evening meeting. Serve it over tubular pasta or polenta.

Ingredients

2 TBS extra Virgin olive oil

4-6 bone-in skin-on chicken thighs

2 yellow onions, sliced

2 carrots peeled and chopped

2 stalks celery, washed and chopped.

1 red bell pepper, cored and sliced

8 oz. white mushrooms

8 oz. Kalamata olives, pitted

3 TBS tomato paste

½ cup dry white wine

1 14oz. can chopped tomatoes

2 cups chicken stock or broth

1 TBS Worchester Sauce

2 tsp each of thyme, oregano, rosemary, basil

Salt and pepper to taste

chopped parsley for garnish

 

Recipe

I have a browning setting in my slow cooker. If you don’t, you will need to do the first part on the stove with a skillet.

Salt and pepper the chicken. Brown the chicken in the olive oil, and remove to a plate. Add the chopped onions, carrots and celery to the pan and stir over medium high heat until they take on some color. Add the peppers and mushrooms keep stirring for a few minutes.

Add the tomato paste and stir it in. Stir in the herbs. Stir in the wine and keep stirring for several minutes. Add the chicken stock and the tomatoes and stir for a minute or two until in simmers. Put the chicken pieces and their juices on top of the vegetable and put the lid on the slow cooker. Set it on LOW for up to 10 hours (8 is fine). Serve over pasta or polenta.

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Shrimp Pad Thai

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Shrimp Pad Thai

 

 

This Pad Thai is relatively easy stir-fry to make, but it requires a bit of time for chopping and prep.

Ingredients

 

12 oz wide rice sticks

3 TBS peanut Oil

2 cloves garlic, finely chopped or put through a garlic press

4 scallions cut in 2 in. pieces

½ TBS finely chopped fresh ginger

1 lb. large shrimp, shelled and deveined

2 Eggs, beaten

4 oz snow peas

½ sliced red bell pepper

1 cup bean sprouts, rinsed and drained

½ cup chopped roasted peanuts (for garnish)

½ cup of chopped cilantro (for garnish)

Lime wedges (for serving)

Red pepper flakes to taste (optional)

 

Sauce

1 TBS fish sauce

1 TBS tamarind paste

1 TBS Chinese cooking wine or dry sherry

 

Recipe

 

Place the rice sticks in a large bowl and cover with hot tap water for 30 minutes. Chop the garlic, scallions and ginger and place on a small plate and set aside. Slice the bell pepper and set aside. Bring a small pot of water to a boil, poach the snow peas for one minute, drain and spray with cold water. Set aside. Beat the eggs and set aside.

In a small bowl mix the fish sauce, tamarind paste, and cooking wine and set aside.

You may use a wok, but I prefer to use my 12 in. stainless-steel skillet. Heat oil in the pan over medium high heat. When the oil is hot, toss in the ginger, garlic and scallions and stir fry for 30 seconds. Toss in the red pepper. Toss in the shrimp and stir-fry until pink, about 3 minutes. Stir in the sauce and mix well. Reduce heat to medium low and add the drained rice noodles and toss and fold them into the pan. Repeat with the drained bean sprouts. Keep stir-frying for several minutes until everything is coated with the sauce and is hot. Turn the Pad Thai into a warm serving dish and top with the peanuts and cilantro. Serve with lime wedges. An Alsatian Riesling or an Asian beer would go nicely with it.

 

 

 

 

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Roast Rosemary Pork Tenderloin with Raspberry Sauce

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Pork

My granddaughter celebrated her eighth birthday right before Christmas, and we asked her if she had any requests for her birthday dinner. She said, “I want Bompas’ (that’s me) pork tenderloin!” Somewhere she was served a memorable one with raspberry sauce, and I’ve tried to reproduce it for her several times with varying critical responses. She deemed this one pretty good, so I will share it with you. Continue reading →

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Tofu with Hot Bean Sauce (Mapo Tofu)

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Mapo Tofu

I’ve been making various versions of this dish since my children were little. They loved it and would request it. I had a good vegetarian tofu dish as well, but that was a hard sell. I think of it as Chinese comfort food. The original recipe came from the superb The Key to Chinese Cooking by Irene Kao, but I’ve tweaked it over the years. Some of the ingredients are probably not in your pantry, but they’re worth seeking out at an Asian market. You can substitute ground beef for the pork, but it will be heavier. Make sure you have everything ready before you start cooking as the actual cooking takes very little time. Continue reading →

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The Best Store-Bought Eggnog Near You!

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eggnogYes, I know your mom’s homemade eggnog is the best ever, but sometimes you just want to open a bottle or carton of the stuff from the local store.

Here in the Berkshires the best eggnog from a store is High Lawn Farm in Lee, MA, hands down! But you can’t get it everywhere in the land, so I took a highly unscientific poll from all my social media friends and followers asking what they like where they live. Here’s what I found. Continue reading →

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My Top Ten Posts of 2023

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Marsh 1Once again, as the old year passes and the new year beckons, it is my custom to look back at my most viewed posts of the year. I started this blog in 2009 and 2022 was our best year for both views and visits. This year wasn’t quite as good, but we still had 63,922 views and 50,310 visitors. I thank everybody that came by.

I began this blog as mostly theology and a place to post my writings and sermons. But early on I started posting pictures and recipes of my food. All of those can also be found at my cooking blog “Rick’s Recipes.” Continue reading →

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Rick’s German Pancake (Dutch Baby)

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DutchMy daughter-in-law introduced me to this wonderful recipe. This is simplicity itself. Just eggs, milk, flour and butter whisked together and baked, and you have a lovely breakfast or brunch dish that has a texture somewhere between a pancake and a fluffy omelet. Serves four to six. Continue reading →