Philly Roulade!

Tonight I decided to try another roulade. This time I found my butcher's twine, so I'm hoping that the results are even more fantastic than last time (last time was pretty killer, though)!

Today we are having what I am calling a "Philly Roulade". Basically, it's steak filled with Philledelphia cream cheese, onions, and four colors of bell pepper. This is rolled up, tied, and baked. Toward the end I'm dumping some salsa mixed with tomato sauce over it for extra moisture and flavor. I think I might roast some corn while I have the oven on, too.

Here are some pictures from the process:

Salt, pepper, and yellow mustard go on top of thinly cut steak.

Cream cheese, onion slices, and bell pepper slices go on top.

Roll it up (I use a flexible cutting board just for this reason)

Tie it up (I learned from watching Good Eats with Alton Brown) and season with salt and pepper. Then just roast!

Chipotle Pasta and Quinoa Salad

While Soux Chef Gerrard Jr. was checking our expenses and cleaning the kitchen,

Checking our grocery receipt for errors

Cleaning the kitchen

I was making chipotle pasta and quinoa salad with bacon and turkey!

I actually took pictures during the process this time, so you get to see the recipe in photo form!

Cooked shell pasta, red quinoa, and shredded carrots tossed in my biggest bowl

Add finely chopped tomato, celery, and snap peas for crunch

Then add bell pepper (I used red, yellow, and green, but you could use any variety) and finely chopped onion. You don't want a big chunk of raw onion in your bite.

I tossed in a handful of shredded mozzarella and a handful of shredded cheddar cheese, and a palmful of parmesan

Here's a big pile of chopped turkey and three slices of bacon, because everything is better with bacon. Tossed this into the bowl, too.

Time to make the sauce/dressing. Lots of mayo, some BBQ sauce, yellow mustard, Sriracha sauce, garlic powder and chili powder.  I added a couple table spoons of water, a dash of salt, and more Sriracha after this picture.

Mix in the dressing slowly, because you might have accidentally made more than you need... Luckily, chipotle mayo is delicious on everything, including turkey sandwiches, which might be my lunch today...

And there you have a protein-rich, vitamin-packed, tasty pasta dish that (in my opinion) works well for a side dish or a main course. Enjoy!

Hash Roulade with Roasty Veg

Tonight we are having hash roulade with roasty veg. I had a couple pieces of steak laguishing in my fridge that needed to be used, but I believe in getting more bang for your buck. Instead of cooking one steak for each of us and ending the meal wishing for more, I am making the meat stretch.

Start with thin steaks. I cut mine thin from very thick steaks. Lay them out so they slightly overlap and are in a rough rectangle. Pound them out even thinner and to an even thickness. Season with salt and pepper. Layer  very thinly sliced potato all over this layer. I used a mandoline to get very thin, see-through slices. Toss a handful or two of bell pepper all over the potato. I had some cooked, seasoned turkey to use up, so after dusting the whole thing with parmesan cheese, I stuck a cup and a half of turkey at one end and rolled it up. The best method to keep the meat in a roulade shape is to tie it with butchers twine, but a thorough search of the house revealed no butchers twine to be found, so skewers are my second choice of holding it all together. I refrigerated it in saran wrap after coating it with spices (I used salt, pepper, chili pepper, and thyme). Now it is roasting with mushrooms, cauliflower, onions, a tomato, and curry-coated plantain.

I wish I had taken some pictures as I was preparing the meal, but alas, with my Soux Chef, Chef Gerrard Jr. running underfoot (literally) I was hard-pressed to even make dinner tonight, let alone find the camera to document it.

Lucky you, though, you get to see it as it goes into the oven!

Roudale chilling in the fridge before roasting

Plantains hanging out in a flour/curry/oil mixture, waiting for the roasting pan

Tossing it all into the oven!

I may add the turkey and yam creamy soup from last night as a sauce toward the end of the cooking time, but I plan on playing it by ear - or by nose - at that point.

Thanks for checking out what's going on my rural table tonight!

EDITED TO ADD: Finished product! Delicious! I added that yam soup halfway through and it made it a very tasty dish.

Turkey Stock on the Wood Stove

Today my adventure is making stock on my wood stove. It is winter where I live, and winter means snow, snow, snow, and cold. So, we heat our home with wood. Tons and tons of wood.

The nice thing about a wood stove is that it is a multitasker. Wood stoves not only heat your home, they can dry your clothes if you have a rack to hang them on, they burn up trash like magazines, junk mail, egg cartons, and shipping boxes, they can act like a warm mist humidifier if you put a big pot of water on constantly, and last but not least, they can cook your food. Why use multiple appliances when only one is needed, and it doesn't even use electricity?

So today I am making turkey stock on my wood stove.

Yesterday we had roasted turkey with a yam pureé and green salad. Today I took the leftovers of the turkey, removed the roasting rack from the pan, poured a TON of water in over the turkey (along with all the spices and veggies I roasted with the turkey yesterday) and set it on the wood stove with the lid on. It's been boiling away all morning, and I simply add water as needed.

Let me give you a few pointers regarding cooking on a wood stove.

• Always have extra (cooking) water handy. While you are learning the whims of your stove, you may find that you are boiling dry faster than on your traditional cooktop. I keep mine in a tea kettle on or near the stove so I am not cooling my food down too much.
• Keep metal utensils at the wood stove and leave the silicone, plastic, and maybe even wooden ones behind. There will come a time when you accidentally set it down on the extremely hot cooktop without thinking. You can't just turn off the wood stove to get the plastic off.
• Keep tongs and oven mitts handy. 
• Keep a fire extinguisher very handy, just in case.
• Smaller, drier pieces of wood make a very hot fire, while full rounds and larger, greener wood burn cooler. Green wood isn't great - it burns dirty and you need to clean your chimney more often.
• Make sure your stove is airtight just in case a fire gets out of hand. You should be able to shut it down at the intake and at the chimney.

This morning, I had enough time to bake some cran-raisin muffins with flaxseed meal. Here they are, adorning my table.

And I thought you would all like to meet my new Soux Chef, Chef Gerrard Jr. He is my constant companion in the kitchen and best taste-tester I could ask for.