MOVING DAY!!

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http://pbjonrye.wordpress.com/

Happy Eating!

Moving On

PBJ On Rye is moving into a new home. After a few years on blogspot, I have decided to set up shop elsewhere, and a new and improved www.pbjonrye.com will be coming soon. Please stay tuned for the link that I’ll be setting up shortly. In the meantime, cook on!

This One's A Real Gas

What could be better than your boyfriend cooking up a fabulously hot and healthy meal for you on a chilly Southern California night? How about if he also blogs about the dish, photograph and all? That's what my boyfriend/contributing-blogger did for my very first post of 2009. Here is his (unedited) take on an old classic, beef barley soup. Enjoy!

Beef Stew Barley Farts

My first go at the crock. Tasted very nice, especially the sauce, though the stew meat I purchased was tough -- could be their fault or it needed more crock time. Oh, and the barley had me er, for lack of a better word, farting all day. Not to worry, while not quite silent, they were rather odorless (you can even ask my gf). Anyway, here's the recipe as best I recall, I was shaking, and scooping and splashing, no real measuring besides the squint of my eye.

1.3 pounds (or so) of stew meat

¾ to 1 cup of 3 day old Merlot

½ to ¾ cup of crushed tomatoes

3 cups of water or so

1/3 beef boullian cube.

¼ cup balsamic vinegar

1 Tablespoon hot sauce

1 Tablespoon lemon juice

1 Tablespoon hot curry paste concentrate

1 Tablespoon sweet soy sauce

1 Tablespoon hoisin sauce

1 Tablespoon heaping curry powder

1 Tablespoon oregano

1 Tablespoon salt/pepper

I put all that on high for 2 hours at which time I cracked open the crock to toss in chopped veggies in hopes of keeping them crisp for another 2 two hours (so 4 hours in total)--it worked:2 stalks of celery, 2 carrots, 1 tomato (I don't like potatoes, so I did it my way and left them out) . Next time I'll start the process in the morning and low crock the meat & sauce for 8 hours, tossing in the veggies again only during the last 2 of those 8.

Girl's Night In

The other night my good friend M came over and we decided to have a girl's night of baking. M is not only a good friend but she is one of the most encouraging and positive people I know. She works a full time job plus goes to school so when the opportunity to bake something together came along, she was excited and happy. Both recipes come from the Allrecipes website. The first one we made was for the classic Snicker doodle cookie, one of my all time favorites. I have previously posted a recipe for Snicker doodles before but when my coworker brought in these cookies to work a couple weeks ago, I had to try the recipe out myself. They are so delicious--a little puffy and soft in the center with nice little crispy edges. Yummy!

The second recipe we made that night was for Butterscotch Bread Pudding (is your mouth watering yet)? Make sure you use an extra large mixing bowl when putting this together. The thing I like about making bread pudding is you can improvise as you go along, like maybe adding a handful of raisins or how about a dash of rum into the mix? The bread type can be varied too depending on your taste. For this bread pudding though, we pretty much stuck to the recipe and it turned out lusciously good. Right out of the oven the pudding is well, very pudding-ish in consistency. If you can stand to wait a day like I did before digging into it, the bread pudding will be firm and full of delicious butterscotch flavor.

M and I had so much fun baking that night that we've decided to make our girl's night of baking a monthly thing. Happy Baking!

For the recipes click here:

Snicker doodle

Butterscotch Bread Pudding

Stick To Your Ribs Cooking

Whenever I think of comfort food, I usually think of something warm, rich, and hearty. Sweet or savory, a dish that comforts you like a fuzzy blanket or a childhood teddy bear is something to be eaten with pleasure and appreciation. This recipe for country style pork ribs is a perfect example of such a comforting dish. Made with only brown sugar and tomatoes, the ribs pretty much cook themselves in the oven for about 3 hours. These turned out so tender and the flavor was simply delicious. What could be better than simple comfort food like this?

Comforting Pork Ribs (adapted from the Encyclopedia of Creative Cooking)
1 12-ounce can tomatoes
3/4 cup firmly packed brown sugar
3 pounds country style pork ribs

Layer the ingredients as listed in a large casserole dish starting with the tomatoes and ending with the ribs. Do not stir. Cover with foil and bake at 325 degrees F for 3 hours. Uncover during the last 45 minutes of baking.
Yields about 6 servings.

Shake It Up

Lately, my drink of choice has been the milkshake. I think for the last month (at least), I've had one milkshake fix a day. It's a wonderful comfort "food" and makes me happy. Let's see, so far I've tried milkshakes from Wendy's, Burger King, Del Taco, Carl's Jr., and of course McDonald's! My favorite has to be the vanilla shake from McD's--so simple yet so thick, rich, and delicious. Yesterday I decided to finally break in my Kitchen Aid hand held blender by making my boyfriend a vanilla shake. Since he's lactose intolerant though, I used soy vanilla ice cream and lactose-free milk. I added a tablespoon of caramel sauce and topped it off with whipped cream. The verdict? He loved it and drank the whole thing up.

Soy Vanilla Shake:

1 cup soy vanilla ice cream

1/4 to 1/2 cup milk

Blend the ingredients together for about 15 seconds. If you like, drizzle with caramel sauce and finish it off with some whipped cream.

How About Some Chicken?

This evening I felt like cooking something for my boyfriend and me. Yes, it's been awhile since I've actually done any home cooking...seems like we've been doing more takeout than anything else these last few months. Since I had some lovely chicken thighs and legs in the freezer, I opted for this simple yet very tasty dish from Mark Bittman's cookbook, "How To Cook Everything". Keep in mind that your kitchen may get very hot during the cooking process but luckily for us, it was a cool, breezy day here in Southern California, and our smoke detector only went off once. Enjoy!

Roast Chicken Parts With Herbs and Butter

4 tablespoons of butter

1 whole chicken (3-4 pounds), cut up (I used 4 legs, and 4 thighs)

Salt and freshly ground pepper

Combination of herbs (I used dried herbs--thyme and basil)

1. Preheat oven to 450 degrees F. When hot, put 1 tablespoon of butter in a roasting pan and place it in the oven--leave it there until the butter is melted.

2. Add the chicken, skin side up, season with salt and pepper, and return the pan to the oven. Combine the herb and the remaining butter in a bowl and mix until blended.

3. After the chicken has cooked 15 minutes, spread about 1/4 of the herb/butter mixture over it, turn, add another quarter of the mixture and roast another 10 minutes. Turn the chicken over again (now skin side up) and add another quarter of the herb mixture.

4. Cook until the chicken is done (you'll see clear juices if you make a small cut in the meat near the bone), a total of 30-40 minutes (mine took about 25 minutes to cook).

5. When serving, drizzle the melted butter/herb sauce over the chicken and serve with Japanese udon noodles also drizzled with the butter. Hope you like!