Skinny Chicken Enchilada Rice Bowls sprinkled with optional low-fat Mexican cheese (don’t forget to add points for the cheese!)
Pasta Puttanesca: a pantry pasta sauce
Don’t crowd your buns into the pan…they can touch though
OMG! I *love* to eat!!!
Isn’t it the greatest thing on Earth?
Over the years, I’ve posted a lot of my favorite recipes on this blog, but I do realize that sometimes all those awesome recipes get a little lost with all my Cricut crafting.
Hence this Recipe Round Up!
Each recipe is linked to this index, so feel free to bookmark this page! I will update it as I add more recipes!
ON TO THE FOOD!
Jalapeno Cheese Bread in the Dutch Oven
Completed Cioppino ready for the bowl
Beer Battered Fried Pickles, golden brown and fluffy
Not just rich–decadent!!–but Oh! So delicious Cinnabon Style Cinnamon Buns
Ingredients:
Two chicken breast halves, cubed
1/4 cup oil
1-2 onions, rough diced
3 stalks of celery, rough dice
3 carrots, rough dice
1 cup of frozen peas
chicken broth, about 2 cups
2 pie crusts, pre-made is fine
1/3 cup or so flour
Step 1: Prepare chicken, celery, onion and carrots. Warm the oil in a pot or Dutch Oven over medium heat. Add the onions, celery and carrots and cook for a few minutes. Stirring. Add cubed chicken, stir and cook until chicken is fully cooked. Add frozen peas and mix.
2. Push contents of pot to side, leaving a well in center. Sprinkle the flour into the well to soak up liquid, stirring. Mix in ingredients outside the well. Slowly add the broth to mix the flour with the broth. This will make your gravy. Salt and pepper to taste.
3. Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Put crust on bottom of cast iron skillet, making sure the crust is all the way up the sides of the skillet. If your skillet is properly seasoned, you do not need to grease it. Fill the bottom crust with the filling and top with second crust. Pinch the edges to close the pie. Brush top with beaten egg and prick the dough with fork. Bake for 30 minutes and check crust. If browning too much, cover with foil on edges. Cook for 10-15 minutes more, but watch for burning!
Allow to rest and cool to easily remove the pie from the skillet.
It’s time for some truly authentic Yankee cooking!
I’m proud to share my favorite Yankee recipes–starting with these amazing Durgin-Park Boston Baked Beans!
These are so simple to make and very inexpensive, too! Perfect for our Yankee Traditions video series just beginning on the “Miss Rita To The Rescue!” YouTube channel!
If you’ve ever heard of Boston, you may have heard it being referred to as “Beantown”.
And–although most people from around here never refer to Boston as Beantown (really…never ever!)–baked beans have been a staple at Bostonian tables for generations. And for good reason! Beans are nutritious, hearty and inexpensive to prepare. With a pound of dried navy beans, a chunk of salt pork, some molasses and a few other simple ingredients, you could appease a large family on a cold Saturday night–the traditional bean eating night.
I’m not old enough to remember when Saturdays were regular bean cooking days, but I do recall preparing baked beans for special occasions–such as Easter–and, of course, seeing beans offered as a side dish on every New England menu, including at Durgin Park. Baked beans are especially good as a compliment to scrambled eggs or served for with boiled hot dogs for supper. Yes, hot dogs are boiled or steamed in New England and served on open topped buns, too! We’re weird, I know…
If you’re not from Boston you might be wondering what exactly Durgin-Park is. I’m sure you’ve figured out it isn’t a park at all, but a restaurant. A very old New England restaurant.
Actually Durgin-Park was the second oldest restaurant in Boston–second only to the Union Oyster House, which has been serving food since the days of the Revolution! And, up until a few months ago, Durgin-Park served up old New England favorites–lobsters, chowder, Indian Pudding, Yankee Pot Roast and, of course, baked beans to the masses for more than two centuries!
Back in the 80s, Durgin Park distributed their famous recipes as a souvenir, which is where I got my recipe. I don’t dare change anything about the original recipe for fear of being accused of making improvements on an already perfect thing. My only adjustment is to use my new mini Dutch Oven instead of a traditional (but messy) bean pot.
Ingredients:
One pound of dried navy beans, soaked overnight
1/2 tsp of baking soda (for the parboiling)
1/2 pound of salt pork (or thick cut bacon if not available), cut into chunks
1/3 cup dark molasses
1 tsp dried mustard
1/2 of a medium sized onion, peeled but not cut
1 tsp of salt and 1/4 tsp of pepper
4 tablespoons of sugar (I prefer brown sugar, but the recipe does not specify)
3 cups of hot water to start plus more as beans cook
Instructions:
Begin preparing the beans the night before by soaking them in water. You may need to add more water halfway through the soaking process as the beans rehydrate, so check them before you go to sleep. Don’t try to use canned beans for this recipe or to rush the soaking and parboiling process, because we Yankees will know if you did!
In the morning, rinse the beans and boil them with the baking soda for 10 minutes. Drain and rinse the parboiled beans and set aside.
Dice the salt pork into chunks and peel and halve the onion (do not chop). Put half of the salt port in the bottom of the pot along with the onion.
Add the beans to the pot and cover with remaining salt pork.
Combine salt, pepper, dry mustard, molasses and sugar with 3 cups of hot water and mix thoroughly. Pour mixture over the beans. Cover your pot.
Bake your covered Dutch Oven (or bean pot, if you have one) in a preheated 325 degree oven for six hours, checking about every hour or so to see if the beans need water
Top off the beans as needed throughout the baking process
Remove the onion and salt pork bits (or not…up to you!) and serve!
The beans are simmered for six hours in the oven and should be checked regularly to make sure there is enough liquid on topWhen the liquid on the top of your pot begins to cook off, you should replace it with enough water to just submerge the beans in water.Leftover beans are great served with breakfast and also make a great bean sandwich!
Skinny Chicken Enchilada Rice Bowls sprinkled with optional low-fat Mexican cheese (don’t forget to add points for the cheese!)
Pasta Puttanesca: a pantry pasta sauce
Don’t crowd your buns into the pan…they can touch though
OMG! I *love* to eat!!!
Isn’t it the greatest thing on Earth?
Over the years, I’ve posted a lot of my favorite recipes on this blog, but I do realize that sometimes all those awesome recipes get a little lost with all my Cricut crafting.
Hence this Recipe Round Up!
Each recipe is linked to this index, so feel free to bookmark this page! I will update it as I add more recipes!
ON TO THE FOOD!
Jalapeno Cheese Bread in the Dutch Oven
Completed Cioppino ready for the bowl
Beer Battered Fried Pickles, golden brown and fluffy
Not just rich–decadent!!–but Oh! So delicious Cinnabon Style Cinnamon Buns
Beef & Barley Soup–if you don’t count chowder–is quite possibly the quintessential New England soup.
But nowadays finding a good version can be difficult to find, except maybe in a can. And even the best canned soups are still too salty and tinny for regular consumption.
So, I set about making a healthy and easy Beef & Barley that would rival the ease of warming up a canned version and I think I’ve done it. Of course, I used my trusty Dutch Oven, but I also used my Instant Pot to make ready the beef.
I started with a small piece of meat that was intended as a small roast. I got it on sale for less than $4 and it weighed just under two pounds. Because I froze it when I bought it, I first defrosted it and then cooked it with a small amount of beef broth and some salt and pepper in the Instant Pot on the beef setting. Couldn’t be easier, but note that you could use a portion of roast beef leftovers if you have that.
Once the beef was cooked and had rested, I chopped it up in small pieces and tossed it into the Dutch Oven along with some tomato sauce, a box of beef broth and the drippings from the Instant Pot. I added a can of peas and carrots, but you could use fresh or frozen. It’s up to you, of course.
The Barley was cooked separately from a dried bag of the grain. If you’re wondering where you find dried Barley, check the dried beans section of your grocery store. Once cooked, add the Barley to the soup toward the end of the cooking to keep it from getting too soggy.
Small oyster crackers are the only thing you need to complete this wonderful, homey meal, which is perfect for a cold late Autumn supper.
One small points:
This soup is exceptionally economical. I figured the entire recipe cost me under ten dollars for ten servings!
Ingredients:
Small cut of roast beef, prepared either in an oven or Instant Pot, about 1 1/2 pounds
Box of beef broth
Small can of tomato sauce
Can of diced carrots and peas
About two cups of water
Salt and pepper to taste
Barley, 1 cup, dried and cooked separately with 2 1/2 cups water and salt to taste
Directions:
Cook beef in Instant Pot with a small amount of beef broth and allow to rest OR use precooked cut of roast beef
Slice and then dice the cooked beef and place in Dutch Oven with any pan drippings from the cooking of the beef
Add tomato sauce, beef broth and water to the Dutch Oven and bring contents to boil on the stovetop
Reduce heat to allow the soup to slowly boil off some of the added water and thicken, about 1 hour
Meanwhile in a separate pan, bring the dried Barley to boil with 2 1/2 cups water and salt to taste; cook for 45 minutes
After cooking off some of the liquid, add the can of peas and carrots and the Barley
Allow soup to simmer for an hour or more so that all the flavors meld together
Miss Rita to the Rescue! 