Savory Cheddar Thyme Cornbread

Hi All!

This recipe was delicious! I wish it could be used as a main dish because it was so tasty and full of flavor...Oh wait, I did have it as a main dish when I found out I couldn't swallow the cold Tilapia! Boy was it good! Since the recipe calls for a whole stick of butter I couldn't bring myself to add more butter to it, but that would have been heavenly! Matt thought this was amazing and snacked on it for days until Clifford our Weimeraner decided to counter surf when we were not home and finished the pan off for us. We're starting to think we should probably put most baked goods up higher because Clifford is a carb hound. If its bread, bread based or even just a baked good, he is all over it!

Let me tell you too that Clifford is 13 years old. Most dogs of his breed only last until 12 so goes to show you scarfing an occasional loaf of bread of 1/4 pan of cornbread can't be too bad for you! About 4 years ago Matt made toast for himself for breakfast but didn't put the bread up. We came home to a happy dog and an empty ripped open bread bag. That night we went out and bought a whole new loaf of bread. Next day Matt did the same thing and left the bread out, though he pushed it all the way to the back of the counter. Nothing deters a determined Weimeraner! Clifford got the bag and proceeded to eat the whole loaf, again. Moral of the story, don't have dogs whose nose is the same height as the counter when they lift their heads up. The second moral of the story is counter surfing may prolong your dogs life, haha!

Enough stories and onto this fantastic recipe! Here is the original link:
http://www.onceuponachef.com/2010/02/savory-cornbread-with-cheddar-thyme.html

I did not use fresh thyme because I wanted to see if dried would work just in case I make this in the dead of winter when there is no fresh thyme to be found. Annnnndddd....It worked just fine! This would be really good paired with a hearty stew, some chili (though you may want to take out the thyme for that...) or the best would be with some fresh venison!

Savory Cheddar Thyme Cornbread

Ingredients:
1 ½ cups unbleached all-purpose flour
1 cup yellow cornmeal
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 ¼ teaspoons salt
2 ½ tablespoons sugar
2 teaspoons dried thyme, finely chopped
¾ cup frozen corn (no need to thaw, just be sure kernels are not stuck together)
1 cup freshly grated white sharp Cheddar cheese (I used Trader Joe's Unexpected cheddar)
1 ¼ cup milk (I use skim)
2 large eggs
1 stick (8 Tbs)  unsalted butter, melted and slightly cooled

  Preheat oven to 400 degrees and adjust rack to middle position. Spray a 9-inch glass or metal baking dish with nonstick cooking spray.

 In a large bowl, whisk flour, cornmeal, baking powder, salt, sugar and thyme until well combined.

Sugar! Although you can do without adding sugar it really makes it taste nice!

Stir in corn and cheese.

Make wet mixture: In a small bowl, break up eggs with a wire whisk, then add milk and whisk to combine.

Add wet mixture and melted butter to dry ingredients and stir with a wooden spoon or rubber spatula until just combined. Do not over mix.

Budda (aka butter)

This needs to be stirred more!

Pour batter into prepared baking dish and smooth surface with back of spoon or spatula.

Bake for about 30 minutes, or until puffed and lightly golden.

Cool slightly in pan on wire rack. Cut into pieces and serve warm.

YUM! Eat it warm and you'll be in heaven!

Well, as promised, here is the recipe for the Savory Thyme and Cheddar Cornbread and it was fabulous! Just the right consistency (just a bit crumbly but still moist).  And it will be a welcome addition to any meal this winter when I need a bit of comfort food or a great addition to a Stout stew.
Happy eating!

Tilapia with Tomatoes Caper Sauce

Hi all!
Tonight I decided to do a surf sort of dish rather than a turf sort of dish and came up with Tilapia with tomato caper sauce. I also made some delicious cornbread with cheddar and thyme, which made the house smell fantastic, but also made my oven non-useable for the broiled tilapia dish from Pinterest. What do you do when your oven's out of commission baking cornbread? Sautee it on the stove! So, this recipe required a bit of modification and I made some mistakes, so I'm hoping you can learn from my mistakes.
First mistake was cooking the fish first and making the sauce later. The tilapia filets cooked very well in 1 Tbs of oil for 3 minutes per side. The sauce took about 15 minutes to cook so that means that with prep and cooking time the fish sat in the microwave (to keep warm) for over 10 minutes and cooled off. This didn't bother Matt at all, but the mouth-feel of cold fish made me gag, so I'd say it was not an ideal dinner, but at least one of us was full and happy! I'm not sure what that says about Matt being able to stomach cold fish, but thank God one of us could eat it because I made a lot, hoping it would make a nice lunch tomorrow. The other problem was it was scrumptious! The flavor was spot on and the fish was cooked to flaky moist deliciousness, if only my throat would have cooperated!
So, learn from my mistake and make the sauce, put it on simmer and THEN make the fish!
If this doesn't work for you and you're not making savory cornbread in your oven, you can broil the fish instead which may keep it warmer longer. To do so, follow the original recipe (found in this link):
http://www.skinnytaste.com/2009/03/broiled-tilapia-with-tomato-caper-sauce.html

If you're willing to try it my way, (I'll fix the order in the recipe below) then read on my lovely readers!

Looks good, huh? Tasted great too!

Ingredients:
2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
8 (6 oz) tilapia filets
2 garlic cloves, crushed
2 shallots, minced
2 tomatoes, chopped
2 tbsp capers
1/4 cup white wine
salt and fresh pepper

Season the fish filets with salt and pepper.

Mince the shallots and chop the tomatoes

Sous chef Matt helping out to make this dinner extra special!

Chopped tomatoes

In a medium sauté pan, heat 1 Tbs of olive oil

I used garlic olive oil because I couldn't find regular, woops!

Add garlic and shallots and sauté on medium-low about 4-5 minutes.

Add tomatoes and season with salt and pepper & sauté 7-10 minutes

Gooey tomatoes!!!!

Ummm, they're leaking more!!!

Maybe if I add salt and pepper they'll stop leaking... NOPE!

Add wine and sauté until wine reduces, about 5 more minutes or until its a consistency you like.

WINE! Be sure to taste a glass or two to make sure its fit for cooking...

Holy cats that's a lot of liquid!

Ok this will just have to do, it smells amazing, I'm not cooking it much more!

Add capers and sauté an additional minute.

Meanwhile, heat 1 Tbs of oil in a pan and toss fish in. Cook fish 3 minutes each side.

Again with the garlic olive oil! This is now readily available most places I highly recommend it!

Raw fish! These were pre-frozen filets, that we thawed. They had very little to no fishy smell. If you can smell your seafood it is too old! Don't eat it!!!

Note when I turned the fish it went from translucent to opaque and the pink stripes in the middle turned brown.

I had a hard time getting the fish out in whole filets because it was flaky. It smelled very good!

Place fish on a platter and top with tomato caper sauce.

As you can see this is a very pretty dish as well as a tasty dish and so long as you cook the fish AFTER the sauce is more than 1/2 done you'll be in great shape! I served this with cheddar thyme cornbread, but it would be exceptional over angel hair pasta, rice, or quinoa! And don't you worry, the recipe for Cheddar Thyme Cornbread will be up here soon! And as always...
Happy eating!

Beef Tips in Mushroom Gravy

Hello all!
So sorry about my hiatus from blogging this week, I got silly busy at work and decided to do a bit of leather work because I'm cheap and I figured I could make a "sandwich box" cheaper than if I buy one. For one those things are ridiculously hard to find, and when you do find one, they're usually antique which is AMAZING, but also synonymous with expensive. The one I really liked cost $1500 but it came with a cute silver sandwich box and flask... Ok, let me explain, Matt and I recently got into fox hunting... er... chasing. Here in Maryland we don't hunt foxes any more, but we chase them. Its all about the game of chase, and we have lots of fun doing it on horseback! Now the big issue is I'm also a techie nut and like to have my electronic leash (aka smart phone) with me at all times. I can't do this now because I'm afraid it will fall off while we're riding and I'm not supposed to have a saddlebag, instead you have a sandwich box! Because that's what ladies do when we hunt, we eat sandwiches.
Anyways, in the mean time I've been making some lovely crockpot meals and one of the best ones has been:

Beef Tips in Mushroom Gravy

I know it kind of looks like Alpo, but that's what REALLY tender beef looks like after sitting in a crock pot for 8 hours, YUM!

First thing is first, here is the original link:

http://www.laaloosh.com/2008/06/21/beef-tips-in-mushroom-sauce-crock-pot-recipe/#.UCkTofc5xF5.pinterest

Now for great food you need to start with great ingredients. I started out with 4 lbs of Chuck roast. 2 lbs will be used for this recipe and 2 lbs for Beef Stroganoff later (Now that one REALLY looked like Alpo, but it tasted really good too!)

This cut of meat comes from the front shoulder portion of the cow and usually has pretty good marbling (fat veins through the meat) and cooks up nice and tender.

Mmmmm! Marbling! This is where all the good flavor and juiciness comes from.

You can actually grill this whole thing for a nice juicy piece of meat, you just need to sear it and then cook it on an upper rack over time so it doesn't burn, but still cooks how you like it. Instead of this, I decided to trim the larger pockets of fat and cut it into cubes for beef tips and beef stroganoff.

Approximately 1" chunks

Once you've cut up the meat, you're ready to go!

Ingredients:

2 pounds lean chuck – cut in 1 – 3/4 inch pieces
1 can 98% fat free cream of mushroom soup
1 pkg. onion soup mix
12 oz beef stock

8 oz Baby bella mushrooms (or any mushrooms you'd like!)

Directions:
Put meat in crock pot.

Add mushrooms and pour onion soup mix over meat.

Add soup, beef stock and stir.

Cook in crock pot all day on low (or high for at least 4 hours).

Serve over rice, egg noodles (what we did), or with potatoes. You can also serve it with green beans as a less starchy alternative.

This recipe was ridiculously easy. Less than 30 minutes of prep, followed by 15 minutes when you're ready to eat boiling the noodles and away you go! I would put this on the "Matt can do this by himself" scale of cooking which means REALLY easy!

This would be fantastic on a cold winter day or a crisp fall evening. It was so nice to come home to this being done and ready to go! I wish I would have had green beans with it because they would have complimented the meal really well, but just as it was it was DELICIOUS! On the other hand the original recipe called for diet sprite instead of beef stock and although that is nice because it contains 0 calories, I just thought it would be a foul addition and therefore went for beef stock instead. I think I made the right choice since Matt called this his favorite recipe of the week.
I hope you all enjoy it as much as we did, and as always:
Happy eating!