Working Dad Cooks

Roast chicken, it can be a weeknight meal

My son has class on Thursday night and I tend to work from home on Thursdays which means that I have a little bit of extra time to put together dinner. This week was a roast chicken with root vegetables and yellow beans. I love roast chicken since there are so many different ways to change around the herbs and spices to make it. This week was simple, just salt and pepper.

3ish lb chicken
glug of olive oil
salt and pepper

Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Rub olive oil over chicken and sprinkle generously with salt and pepper. Cook for about 1.5 hours or until internal temperature of 165 or until juices run clear. Let rest for at least 15 minutes but up to 1 hour.

For the root vegetables

5 russet potatoes, peeled and cut into large chucks about 3 per potatoe
6 carrots, peeled and chunked up into 2-3 inch irregular pieces
2 leeks sliced thinly.
Olive oil
Salt and pepper

Put all the veg in a 9×13 pan and coat with olive oil and salt and pepper. Cover with tin foil. When chicken is about half way through put in with chicken. Check the veg when you check the chicken and it may need to continue cooking while chicken rests

The yellow beans are a recipe that my son developed a couple years ago for Thanksgiving and he still likes making it his way. All we do is take a bag of beans and put them with a little water, salt, and garlic powder into a microwave safe dish. Microwave for 3-5 minutes.

Just a little extra time to cook and fresh roasted chicken.

Quiche: It’s what’s for dinner

While we made Chili last weekend, we also made a quiche to have an easy dinner later in the week. Super easy and only about 2 minutes of active time. This time we had a ton of spinach we were using for salads and needed to use it up. So quiche Lorraine with spinach.

2 frozen pie crusts (we found some whole wheat ones that were really good last week at Wholefoods)
8 eggs
4 ounces ham
4 ounces shredded Guyere
2 handfuls of baby spinach
Salt and Pepper

Preheat oven to 350. Mix all the ingredients together and divide between the two pie crusts. Bake until a toothpick comes out clean, about 30-40 minutes.

We served it with a salad with lemon dressing to cut through all of the eggs, ham, and cheese.

Chili, Dinners and Lunches all week

Chili is a bone of contention in our household and not for the usual beans or no beans. My contention is that chili should be made with small cubed meat. My wife believes that ground meat is the only way to go. Since I made it, I got to chose. This is another of those Sunday afternoon long slow cooks that I like to do while we do other things. Only thing I have learned through the years is don’t go away too long as the bottom sometimes burns. Here’s our recipe.

2 lbs small diced beef (I buy whatever is on sale since you are cooking it a long time)
some flour
olive oil
onion
green pepper
4 cloves garlic
2 cans kidney beans
2 cans whole peeled tomatoes
Bunch of chili powder
Cayenne
Salt and pepper

Put some flour, salt, and pepper in a ziploc with the beef and shake around to coat. In a hot dutch oven, add olive oil then throw the beef in flour into pot. Cook until nicely golden being careful not to move it around too much as you want it to brown. Once browned, remove from pan and set aside. add onion, pepper, and garlic. Cook until softened. Add beef back and then beans and tomatoes and stir making sure to scrape the bottom to get all the good stuff into the flavor. Add seasoning and let cook for a couple hours on a low simmer.

Made a mistake with this recipe and added too much salt. My fix, there were a couple potatoes sitting on the counter that I used to absorb the salt. Worked ok but not perfectly.

We tend to top or chili with either shredded cheese or sour cream and we serve it with cilantro and jalapenos.

In addition, served it with cornbread that we made by following the directions on the back of the bag so I won’t bore you with that bit. Only modification was to add a bit of charred frozen corn.

Scallops were on sale

Sometimes things just fall in your lap. When we went to the market sea scallops were on sale and we bought them as a special treat. My idea was a nice clean and refreshing dinner to complement one of my favorite foods. Before our son came along, my wife order a dozen live sea scallops as a special treat for Christmas one year. That was one of the most memorable meals I have ever eaten. Our simple dinner was just seared scallops with yet another herby oil and a nice salad that we have stolen from our local Greek restaurant that we love.

The salad is super simple and we serve it with a lot of different seafoods. Originally, the Greek restaurant served it with charred octopus and is one of the reasons we buy octopus whenever we seen, though in really small quantities.

Can of black eyed peas
3 carrots finely diced
finely sliced green onion
Italian parsley
juice from 1/2 lemon
salt and pepper
glug of olive oil

Just combine all the ingredients and done. Served it over Romaine and some sunflower sprouts we had in the fridge.

The scallops are super simple. Get a screaming hot pan and put a bit of olive oil in it. Sprinkle salt over scallops and cook about 1-2 minutes each side.

For the herby oil, what ever you have in the fridge like cilantro, parsley, basil, oregano, or whatever. Combine it with a bit of salt and olive oil in a food processor. And done.

Lamb Shawarma

As you may be learning, I like to marinate meat and ferment dough overnight for the next day. We eat a lot of flatbread in our house from all across the world. The biggest thing I have learned over the last couple years is that flatbreads are easy to make and only take a short time to prepare, if you plan ahead. Tonight’s dinner was a take on a lamb shawarma with fresh pita.

The pita for this dish is like so many of doughs that I make. Take 15 minutes after doing dishes and make a quick dough, through it in the fridge. Next day, pull it out when you get home and let it sit for a bit while you do other things.

1 cup of warm water
1 tbsp yeast
1 tsp sugar
pinch salt
2 1/2 cups flour (I just use all purpose for everything)
olive oil

Mix the water, yeast, sugar and 1/2 C flour and let form a starter for about 15 minutes. Mix in rest of flour and knead for about 3 minutes. Through it in a ziploc bag and into the fridge overnight. The next day, let warm up for about a half hour on the counter. Divide into 8 equal pieces and roll into balls. Roll out each of the balls to about 6-7 inches. In a super hot pan, place rolled out dough one at a time in pan. Cook 1-3 minutes each side or until slightly golden. Keep warm in a tea towel until ready to serve.

To make the lamb, I like to buy the boneless leg of lamb and then slice it thinly. Put a marinade on it overnight. And grill it either outside in the summer or on a cast iron grill pan in the winter.

1.5 lbs boneless leg of lamb
few shakes of soy sauce
glug of olive oil
ground cumin
ground coriander
garlic powder
onion powder
sweet paprika
salt and pepper
oregano

I don’t tend to measure these things but until it looks about right. Mix all together in a ziploc and smush around for a bit and through it in the fridge. The next day, take out of the fridge and let warm up on the counter for about 30 minutes. Grill over medium-high grill or grill pan.

To serve, we like a lot of veggies of different kinds and a quick yogurt sauce, sort of tzatziki. For the yogurt sauce, simply combine:

1 cup of goat milk yogurt
1/2 English cucumber, grated
salt and pepper
paprika

The other veggies we like with this are:

cucumbers (use the other half from the sauce so you don’t forget about it)
green onions
Italian parsley
Diced tomatoes
Roasted peppers
Romaine lettuce

Wife working late: Empanadas for All

My wife was going to be working late so last Sunday we put together a dozen quick empanadas. For the dough

2 cups flour
1 tsp baking powder
pinch of salt
1/2 cup shortening
1/2 cup milk

Mix together first three ingredients in food processor to combine. Add shortening and whiz until it looks like course ground meal. Add milk and whiz until the dough comes together. Cover with plastic wrap and let rest for about 30 minutes while you make the filling

We tend to eat a lot of bison and duck when we can find it. So these were bison empanadas.

1 lb ground bison
1/2 onion
1 cup thinly sliced red and yellow peppers
1/3 frozen peas
salt and pepper
pinch of cumin and coriander

Saute bison with onion and peppers until just cooked. Add frozen peas and spices. Remove from heat.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Divide dough into 12 pieces and roll out into about a 5 inch round. Place a couple tablespoon of filling in each and fold over into half moon using fork tines to seal. Whisk an egg in a small bowl. Place the empandas on a parchment lined baking sheet and brush on egg. Bake for about 30-40 minutes or until golden brown

We like ours with a little chimichurri sauce. For us this is another one of those clean out the herbs in the drawer.

bunch of cilantro
bunch of parsley
couple green onions
2 gloves of garlic
small chili
salt
whatever other fresh herbs you have
1/4 cup of your favorite vinegar (we use rice wine)
1/2 cup olive oil

Whiz it all up in the food processor.

Serve empanads with chimichurri.

My favorite dish: Bao Char Siu

For the past year, I have been trying a figure out how to imitate David Chang’s Bao Char Siu recipe with my own twist. Now that the holiday season is over, no more long stews and back to figuring out how to make good food in short time. After cleaning up from the rabbit stew, it was time to quickly get a couple things in the fridge working. First, the pork loin needs to get marinated overnight. Our marinade is:

1.5 lb pork loin
good shake soy sauce
couple good squeezes of hoisin sauce
2 cloves of smushed garlic
couple good shakes of ground cumin
couple good shakes of ground coriander
about an inch of grated ginger
good squeeze of honey
glug of canola oil

Put it all in a gallon ziploc and put it in the fridge overnight.

Next, the milk bread dough. The one thing I have learned is two tricks for the milk bread. First, ferment it overnight in the fridge. Second, use yeast and baking powder in the dough. Our recipe is:

1 cup warm milk (just above room temperature
1 tbsp spoon active dry yeast
3 tbsp sugar
3 cups flour (I just use all purpose)
bit of salt
2 tsp baking powder
1 tbsp canola oil

Mix the warm milk with sugar and yeast and let proof for about 15 minutes. Add salt and baking powder while mixing, slowly add the flour. After you have formed a soft dough, knead for about 5 minutes. Coat a bowl with canola oil and swish dough around to coat. Cover with plastic wrap and put in the fridge overnight.

When you get home from work put pork loin in a roast pan at 350 degrees for about an hour or to internal temp of 140 and let rest on counter for about 30 minutes.

While pork is in the oven, divide dough into about 30 or so golf ball size pieces. Cut out enough parchment squares of 4in x 4in for all the dough. Roll out a ball to about 3-4 inches and place on parchment paper sticking parchment paper in between halves so that you have a taco shaped bun. After all the buns are rolled out. Let rise for about 15-20 minutes. Steam buns in a bamboo steamer for about 8-10 minutes per batch. It will take a will to steam all the batches unless you have many layers to your steamer (I don’t).

To construct to buns, we like to have:

thinly sliced cucumbers
thinly sliced green onion
quick pickled carrots
cilantro leaves
Jalapeno or thai chilies
hoisin sauce
Sriracha sauce

Serve family style.

Mother-in-law in town: Rabbit Stew

My mother-in-law came into town for my son’s birthday and we thought we would make a little rabbit stew for her to try something new. We have two different places where we can buy rabbit near us: an Asian market or a butcher shop. There is a definite difference in price and quality between the two. The butcher, though expensive is well worth it, especially to try to impress the mother-in-law. One of my favorite things over the last year has been to butcher my own poultry and small animals. It is really easy to butcher a rabbit into eight piece plus the spine. Never through away the spine as I keep a running set of carcasses in the freezer to make stock.

Our quick and easy recipe is to brown the rabbit in a dutch oven and set aside.

Once the rabbit has been removed add to the dutch oven:

1 onion diced
a few celery stalks decided
a couple carrots diced
a pound of potatoes

After the vegetables soften, add a can of whole peeled tomatoes and cook for about 15 minutes. Add the browned rabbit back to the pot and stew for about an hour. Remove rabbit and chop up into smallish pieces. Dish out the stew into bowls and top with rabbit pieces.

New Years Day – Son’s Birthday

9 years ago today we welcomed our son as the first born in Poudre Valley Hospital at 12:21am of 2010. As with every year, he gets to choose what he wants to eat. This year, nothing fancy, just spaghetti and meatballs. What a great way to get the year started. Our tomato sauce is really a vegetable drawer clean out machine. This time it was:

1 onion
2 carrots
few cloves of garlic
bunch of rainbow chard
tons of basil
2 cans peeled whole tomatoes
salt and pepper

Quickly saute it all in some olive oil and just let it do its thing for an hour or so.

Next, the meatballs. Our recipe is really simple:

2 lbs ground beef (grass fed)
2 eggs
some panko to get the right texture
salt and pepper
dried oregano

Mix it up by hand and roll into about golf ball size. Saute for to brown and deglaze pan with some red wine and dump into the sauce. Add meatballs to sauce and cook until done.

Serve over spaghetti.

Why am I doing this?

Having spent the better part of the last decade cooking for my family and a couple decades before that cooking for myself, I realized not too long ago that I actually enjoy it. The transition period between work me and home me is best done while making dinner for the family. Kneading dough, butchering a chicken are all ways that let the frustrations of work out while I get ready for family like.

It started with Thursday night parties with friends in college to watch Friends and Seinfeld. Now you can find me reading Bon Appetite, cookbooks, America’s Test Kitchen most nights. My commutes to work are especially great on Wednesday night when I get my weekly fix of the Bon Appetite Foodcast. Cooking for my family has become something I care about and want to push my own cooking but also what we serve our son. At the end of every new meal, we go around the table to see if we keep it, pitch it, or change it. Glad to say that the pitch its are less common.

My hope with doing this is to remind myself that it is important and that, with not too much trouble, good meals for a family are not too hard to do nor take up too much time. The goal is to show to myself and others that we don’t need Weightwatchers, HelloFresh, or any of the other services to make good, healthy, homemade food with fresh ingredients. What I promise to any one who reads this is: a quick overview of the recipe, where the basic idea came from, how long it took, and tips that I can pass on from making it.