All-American Potato Salad

This recipe was on Cook's Country and I got it from their website.  It is hands down, one of the best potato salad recipes I've ever made.  Not all goopy with mayo, even though I love mayo.....cooking the potatoes to the proper doneness is tricky, you do need to stand by and watch.  They go from perfect to overcooked in about 1 minute!
Serves 4 to 6.

Ingredients
2 pounds Yukon Gold potatoes , peeled and cut into 3/4-inch cubes
1 1/2 teaspoons table salt
3 tablespoons dill pickle juice , plus 1/4 cup finely chopped dill pickles
1 tablespoon yellow mustard
1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper
1/2 teaspoon celery seed
1/2 cup mayonnaise
1/4 cup sour cream
1/2 onion, red (small) , chopped fine
1 rib celery , chopped fine
2 hard-cooked eggs , peeled and cut into 1/4-inch dice (optional)

Instructions
1. Place potatoes in large saucepan with cold water to cover by 1 inch. Bring to boil over high heat, add 1 teaspoon salt, reduce heat to medium-low, and simmer until potatoes are tender, 10 to 15 minutes. A knife inserted into the potatoes and comes out easily, is done.  Dont' overcook!

2. Drain potatoes thoroughly, then spread out on rimmed baking sheet. Mix
2 tablespoons pickle juice and mustard together in small bowl, drizzle pickle juice mixture over potatoes, and toss until evenly coated. Refrigerate until cooled, about 30 minutes.


3. Mix remaining tablespoon pickle juice, chopped pickles, remaining 1/2 teaspoon salt, pepper, celery seed, mayonnaise, sour cream, red onion, and celery in large bowl. Toss in cooled potatoes, cover, and refrigerate until well chilled, about 30 minutes. (Salad can be refrigerated in airtight container for up to 2 days.) Gently stir in eggs, if using, just before serving.

Salmon on a cedar plank

I grilled salmon on a cedar plank last night for dinner and is was delicious!
First, you need good quality, wild salmon. Second, you need a 7x12 inch cedar plank.
Third, you need some Seattle Salmon Rub from the World Spice Merchants.

You need:
1 large salmon fillet (I used the piece that I bought at Sam's Club last week, it was a 1.5 pound fillet), skin removed
1 tbsp of the Seattle Salmon Rub
4-5 tbsp of Dijon mustard
6 tbsp of brown sugar

Begin by brining the salmon fillet. (this article says they don't brine salmon fillets, but they are talking the small single serving fillets) I used a fillet that is the whole half a salmon, cut in half.
I brined it for about 30 minutes and then pat dry with a paper towel. While the salmon is brining, also soak your cedar plank (fully submerge in water) for at least 30 minutes to 1 hour.

When the salmon is done brining and the plank is done soaking, prep your grill for indirect cooking, put all the coals in a pile on one side of the grill. Place the thoroughly dried off salmon on the cedar plank, on what would be the skin side down.
Generously sprinkle the salmon fillet with the Seattle Salmon Rub (or salt and pepper works too.). Next, spread the dijon mustard all over the salmon fillet, coating it.
In a bowl, crumble the brown sugar. If you are using the salmon rub, add a teaspoon to the brown sugar and crumble with your fingers. Sprinkle the brown sugar over the dijon mustard to coat the salmon.
Place the plank on the side of the grill away from the coals and cover. Let the salmon roast for 25-30 minutes, check it at 20. Internal temp should be 125 on an instant read. Be careful to NOT overcook the salmon.
Remove the plank from the grill to a serving platter, serve directly from the plank. (I slid it right onto a flat cookie sheet.
Cut into serving sized pieces and serve. It is delicious!

Chocolate Chip Cookies

coo

I made chocolate chip cookies today and they are so good! I've been using this recipe for over a year and have made a few modifications to it to make it my own. These cookies are so good and the best part, they stay soft for several days after baking....if stored in a ziploc or airtight container. Also, this recipe makes a lot of cookies, but either more for you or lots to share with friends and neighbors.


1 cup butter, softened (unsalted is preferable)
1 cup shortening
2 cups brown sugar, firmly packed
1 cup granulated sugar
4 eggs
2 tsp vanilla
4 1/2 cups flour
2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
2 1/2-3 cups chocolate chips

Cream butter and shortening with sugars in the bowl of a stand mixer. Add eggs and vanilla, mix thoroughly. In a large bowl, combine flour, baking soda and salt. Add gradually to the butter mixture. Stir in chocolate chip.
Chill dough for an hour. (not absolutely necessary, but the cookies don't totally flatten out when baking).
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Drop dough by spoonfuls on baking sheets. Bake for 10-12 minutes. Let set for a minute or two and remove to cooling rack. Cool and store in an airtight container.

Enjoy, this makes about 10-11 dozen cookies.

**if you don't want to have that many cookies lying around the house or can't be trusted with them, freeze half the dough in a ziploc bag and thaw before baking.

Fresh and Delicious Green Beans

We grew green beans in the garden last summer, so we had plenty of FRESH green beans to go around. They were delicious! As I was looking for different ways of preparing them, I decided to give one of those grill baskets a try.

If you have never tried one of these, run to Ace Hardware or http://www.cooking.com/ and get one! You'll be happy you did. Ours doesn't look this shiney and new anymore, because it has been used often! We use this for everything! green beans, aparagus, potatoes, onions, zucchini, etc. any vegetable you'd saute on the stove can be cooked on the grill in this thing.
So, we made our beans in this all last summer. These don't take more than 5 minutes on a pre-heated grill, so I would prepare the beans while any meat that was just cooked on the grill is quietly resting under tented foil.

1-2 pounds fresh green beans
olive oil
kosher salt
1-2 cloves of garlic minced (optional)
soy sauce

Place the grill basket on the preheated grill. Toss the washed and dried green beans with olive oil and put into the hot basket. They'll sizzle and smoke. Using your grill tongs, keep tossing them in the basket. Sprinkle with kosher salt and toss some more. Continue to cook on the grill for a couple minutes, until the beans are cooked, but still crisp; you do NOT want limp beans.
Depending how hot your grill is, this should take about 4-5 minutes.
Just before removing from the grill, generously sprinkle the beans with soy sauce and thoroughly toss. At this point, if you also want to toss in some minced garlic, do it. Be VERY careful to NOT burn the garlic if you do choose to add it. Burnt garlic = blechhhh!
Remove the basket from the grill and transfer the beans to a serving bowl. Pass them when they are hot off the grill. So delicious!

**pictures will follow, making these tonight with grilled pork chops....


NOTE: you can also make these in a large non-stick skillet, on the stove.

Classic BBQ Chicken

I made this for dinner on Thursday night and I have to say, it is one of the best versions of BBQ chicken I've tried! So delicious and the chicken was so tender and juicy. The sauce was really good and sticky on the chicken. There's a lot more sauce than what what you'll need, but we made BBQ Bacon and Cheddar Burgers last night for dinner and it was delicous there too!

Quick BBQ Sauce3 cups barbecue sauce (bottled)
1/2 cup molasses
1/2 cup ketchup
1/4 cup cider vinegar
3 tablespoons brown mustard
2 teaspoons onion powder
1 teaspoon garlic powder
Chicken1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon pepper
1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper
3 pounds bone-in, skin-on chicken pieces (breasts, whole legs, thighs, and/or drumsticks), trimmed and breasts halved

Instructions
For the sauce: Whisk all ingredients in medium saucepan and bring to boil over medium-high heat. Reduce heat to medium and cook until sauce is thick and reduced to 3 cups, about 20 minutes. (Sauce can be refrigerated in airtight container for up to 1 week.)

For the chicken: Mix salt, pepper, and cayenne in small bowl. Pat chicken dry with paper towels and rub spice mixture all over chicken pieces.

Open bottom vent on grill. Light large chimney starter filled with charcoal briquettes (about 100 coals) and burn until charcoal is covered with fine gray ash. Place 13 by 9-inch disposable aluminum roasting pan on one side of grill and pour coals in even layer over other side of grill. Set cooking grate in place, cover, open lid vents completely, and let grill heat for 5 minutes. Scrape cooking grate clean.

Oil grate and place chicken skin side down on cooler side of grill. Cover, with half-opened lid vents over chicken, and cook until chicken begins to brown, 30 to 35 minutes. Move chicken into single line close to coals. Begin flipping chicken and brushing with 2 cups sauce every 5 minutes until sticky, about 20 minutes. Slide chicken pieces over coals and continue to brush chicken until sauce on chicken becomes crusted and internal temperature of breast meat registers 165 degrees and legs, thighs, and drumsticks register 175 degrees, about 5 minutes. Transfer chicken to platter, tent with foil, and let rest 10 minutes. Remove foil and serve, passing remaining sauce at table.

Cooks Country TV has the gas grill version of this recipe available as well! YUM!

Split Pea Soup with Smoked Ham

I love split pea soup. I grew up eating split pea soup that my mom made and it was delicious! She made hers in one of those Romertopf clay cookers. I had one for several years and used it often, but realized when we moved in here, we really didn't have room for something like that anymore. I had to adapt my recipe for preparation in the Crockpot.
A very important ingredient for this soup is a smoked ham shank or smoked ham hock. I stop at Widmer's and pick one up, the butcher will always saw it in half so that the marrow will release into the soup. The flavor from a smoked ham shank is delicious. Much better than a ham bone left from Easter.
Let's make Split Pea Soup. Start with a large Crockpot. Dump in one bag of dried green peas, add the smoked ham shank, a large chopped onion, chopped carrot and chopped celery. I always throw in a couple stalks of leafy topped celery stalks for the flavor. I had a bag of matchstick carrots in the fridge that needed to be used, so into the pot they went.
I also gave it a couple turns of fresh ground pepper. Don't add any salt at this time, the ham shank is pretty salty so hold off on that until serving. Add some chopped parsley, Widmer's only had curley and I prefer flat leaf, so I used dried parsley flakes.
Once all that is in the pot, add water. I used 2 quarts of water to fill my Crockpot.
Turn it on and let it cook on low overnight.
My method for this is to start it the night before you want to eat it. It will end up cooking on low for about 24 hours; seems like a long time, but it's not! You'll want to check it in the morning and add more water.
Tune in tomorrow for photos of the cooking process....


Split Pea with Smoked Ham Soup

1 smoked ham shank or ham hock
1 bag of dried green split peas
2-3 chopped carrots
1 onion, chopped
2 stalks celery, chopped
1 stalk of leafy green celery
chopped parsley
fresh ground pepper
2 quarts water

Add it all to the crockpot and cook for 24 hours on low. Add more water as needed.
Here's the finished product, I ended up cooking this a little longer. After 24 hours, the soup wasn't thick and hadn't lost the bright green color. I prefer it cooked long enough to thicken up and turn a darker green, with a hint of brown in it.
Yum!

Delicious Minestrone Soup

My mom made this soup on Super Bowl Sunday and it was delicious! It looks like it is spendy to make, but very tasty!


2 tablespoons olive oil
1 ounce pancetta, chopped (5 to 6 thin slices)
1 1/2 cups chopped green cabbage
1 cup chopped onions
1 cup sliced carrots
1/4 cup chopped celery
2 garlic cloves, minced
2 quarts chicken broth
1/2 cup peeled, diced potato
1 piece parmesan cheese rind (3 inches square)
3/4 cup vermicelli or angel-hair pasta (broken into 2-inch pieces)
1/2 cup chopped plum tomatoes, peeled and seeded
1/4 cup cooked chickpeas (drained and rinsed if using canned)
1/3 cup cooked kidney beans (drained and rinsed if canned)
1/3 cup pesto
1/2 teaspoon salt or to taste
1/4 teaspoon pepper or to taste
Freshly grated parmesan cheese
To cook vegetables: In soup pot, heat oil over medium heat. Add pancetta. Cook for 3 to 5 minutes or until fat melts. (Note: Do not allow pancetta to brown.) Add cabbage, onions, carrots, celery and garlic. Cook for 6 to 8 minutes or until onions are translucent. Add broth, potatoes and parmesan cheese rind. Bring to a simmer. Cook for 30 minutes or until vegetables are tender. (Note: Don't overcook them.)
To cook pasta: Meanwhile, cook pasta according to package directions until tender. Drain.
To assemble: When vegetables are tender, remove and discard parmesan rind. Add cooked vermicelli, tomatoes, chickpeas and kidney beans. Season to taste with pesto, salt and pepper.
Serve with grated parmesan cheese.