Sundays in Pixieland...





So, although I do not have this weeks' "Something from Nothing" post ready, I DO have a good excuse...a potluck!  Yes, I have ventured back to the working world, and another wonderful place where I will get to taste the cooking and treats from everyone else, instead of just my own (admittedly wonderful) cooking.  With a budget that has suffered a serious downfall in the last several months, I settled on that inexpensive standby, pasta. Here is the recipe I created for the occasion...

1 pound pasta
6 ounces sharp cheddar, cubed
6 ounces salami, cubed
fresh rosemary, oregano, parsley and thyme, minced fine
3 Tb. Olive oil
½ a garlic clove, pressed
3 Tb. Each chopped scallions and pepperoncini peppers
salt and pepper to taste

And the results? Pasta-riffic!

Eat well, my friends, and stay tuned for Something from Nothing, Week four, and Kitchen Angels' latest hijinks's. Love and kindness to all,

Pixie

Something from Nothing ~ Week 3

I KNOW! I am soooooo late on this post, it's not even funny. Well, if it makes you feel any better, I have good reasons - like re-gaining gainful employment! That is the reason this Pixie has been too pooped to pop! Anyhoo, like all those already in the working world, my time and my energy have been seriously compromised. It shall not deter me from my cause to make a dish from leftover ingredients each week for a year, and share the results. 

This week (week 3), I had a bag of these, which were in danger of turning into fridge Frisbees....

I also had one lonely chicken thigh, at the bottom of what used to be entire bag of thighs....so it hit me, Buffalo-style chicken wrap! First, I shallow-fried the chicken thigh, seasoned with salt and pepper, until it was cooked through...

I then spread the tortilla with mayonnaise..

And lined it with some crunchy lettuce leaves...

On top of the lettuce went some shredded mozzarella cheese, because that is what I had on hand...and of course, some zingy pickled jalapenos..

To make the Buffalo-style sauce, you simply melt together butter or margarine, hot sauce, and a splash of apple cider vinegar...



When the chicken had cooled enough to handle, I shredded it up for the wrap like so...

Toss the shredded chicken in your Buffalo sauce..

Then, fill your tortilla with it...include all that spicy sauce!

Roll it up, burrito-style, cut in half, and enjoy! My results?

Filling, delicious, crunchy from the lettuce, cooling mayonnaise and cheese, and spice-tacular from the buffalo sauce and jalapenos! It was a tasty and satisfying lunch created with just what I had lying around, needing to be used.  That is the whole point of this project, after all! 

Eat well, my friends, and stay tuned for week 4 of Something from Nothing, some workday lunches, and Kitchen Angels' Autumn fun!

Love and kindness to all,

Pixie

Something from Nothing ~ Week 2

As you know, in the dual interests of thrift and tasty Pixie~Pursuits, I am disciplining myself to make a delicious meal from something leftover...at least once a week. The rules of the game are that I must give a recently enjoyed food a new life, and hopefully a new taste and look as well!  Here's what I had to start with this week...

A typical-looking leftover plate of some chicken Piccata with sauce, peas and mashed potatoes. Oh my - whatever am I going to do with this? I put my thinking cap on, and came up with the perfect solution ~ croquettes! Yes, those wonderful golden brown creations....but first, I needed to make a dipping sauce. Marinara-type sauce is wonderful for dipping, so I sliced a garlic clove quite thinly, and sauteed it in two Tablespoons of olive oil...on the lowest heat setting..you just want to soften the garlic, and flavor the oil in this step....the garlic will burn and turn bitter if you do not keep the heat extremely low...

Then, I added the following ingredients,



A little more olive oil (about one teaspoon), a small can of tomato sauce, salt, pepper, red pepper flake, and dried basil, parsley and oregano..just throw it all into the sauce pan with the garlic and oil, mix with a fork, and place on low heat to simmer..

I scraped the sauce (which contained lovely capers and sun-dried tomatoes) off the chicken, and placed into a bowl.  Then, one chops the chicken into very small dice, like so...



I then mixed the chicken, mashed potatoes, peas and sauce together with some fresh tarragon and parsley from the (now indoor) Pixie herb Patch...



I then got out one of my favorite go-to ingredients; Japanese Panko breadcrumbs....crunch-tacular!

Then, one rolls the mixture into croquettes...

Then coat them with seasoned flour, and the bread crumbs. I added salt and pepper to the flour, and salt, pepper and garlic powder to the Panko...

Then, you heat about 2 Tablespoons olive oil in your non-stick skillet, and fry over medium heat, just until nicely browned on each side...

These can be made vegan or vegetarian friendly by simply leaving out the chicken!  Well? How did they turn out?

Really....quite.....amazing! The hot croquettes with some of the marinara sauce were a lovely hot lunch on a blustery Autumn day that made me feel like I was wrapped in a foodie blanket of warmth! The chunks of chicken were great, the chewy sun-dried tomatoes...yum!  There are two things I might tweak the next time I make this, which are; put some chopped scallions into the mixture, and include a beaten egg to hold them together better ~ these have to be carefully handled, and will fall apart easily.  But oh my, they tasted wonderful! Week 2 Something from Nothing is a definite keeper.

Stay tuned for next weeks' Something from Nothing, and a visit with Kitchen Angel! I hear she's been "horsing around". Hmmmm..

Please email me your favorite leftover use-up recipes (allymv@yahoo.com) and I will re-create them and post the pictures here!  Come ON! I've got a whole YEAR, ya know!

Eat well, my friends. Love and kindness to all,

Pixie

Scones ~ The Remix

Even though I just produced a recent batch of scones for Dear Husbands' work place, I was unhappy with them. Why? Well, please see my Berried Treasure post, and you will know why. I simply thought that although tasty, they were less-than-pretty. Now don't get me wrong....tasty will win every time with me, but, I simply could not stand it.  I could, nay, HAD to do better. So, I found an interesting and rather unique (I will tell you why in a bit) recipe on the usual Inter-galactic web search, and attempted my redemption.  This scone recipe was for a simple scone dough, Go here to print it, if you like. I intended to use dried cranberries, instead of raisins, and some orange rind.  First, I got all ingredients together to assemble what would hopefully be my finest scone hour....

From left to right; dried cranberries, sugar, egg, orange, baking powder, flour (unbleached) salt, sour cream and baking soda (not pictured, butter). The reason that the butter is not in the photo, is the unique thing about this recipe ~ it is kept in the freezer, until mixing time! I know that baking ingredients have to be kept cold, but this was most interesting.... Then, after I mixed all the dry ingredients, the REALLY cool part of the recipe....one grates in the entire stick of butter! No, I'm not kidding....look!

The more I thought about it, the more sense it made! After all, when we use a pastry blender, or two butter knives to cut the butter into the flour, the object is to get the butter into small, pea-sized bits. The grating of the butter did exactly that....and was easier! AND faster! A very new, and very cool technique. And just look at the perfectly small, curlicues of butter this left behind...

Genius! I am going to use the grater to cut butter into flour from now on...the only problem was what was holding the end of the stick of butter....which started out to be my (very clean) hand.....but ended up as a paper towel, as the butter got warm and started to melt a little ~ causing me to have...yes, you guessed it...BUTTERFINGERS! HAHAHA! OK, I know, back to the actual task, ahem.  The scones went quickly after that...mixing in the cranberries and orange rind...

Mixing an egg and the sour cream....

Then, combining all into the dough...

Now, here is where I went to another, different level than the blueberry scones.  I made three small rounds, so that the scones would be more workplace-friendly, and would serve more, come to think of it...

I rolled each one of these out into an 8-inch round...

Then cut into wedges and placed on the baking sheets....

Baked at 400 degrees until a lovely golden brown, then cooled on wire racks

While I mixed up a glaze of confectioner's sugar, cream, lemon rind and juice...

Well? Did I finally achieve scone-tacular looks? Scones that looked as good as they tasted?

Why yes......yes I did.  They were rich, moist, not too sweet...and I could sleep at night knowing that Dear Husbands' work buddies would not have to shy away from the less-than-pretty blueberry version. So, I dressed them for the party with some mint which is taking over abundantly growing in the back garden...

What dish did you re-make to your satisfaction? Was it worth it?

Eat well, my friends, and stay tuned for "Something from Nothing", week two! Love and kindness to all,

Pixie

The Great Rib Fake Out!

I know, I know...the scone REEEEE-MIX is coming up. However, Pixies cannot live by baked goods alone, you know.  I don't know about you, but I love me some delicious baby-back ribs! During this impossible strained economic time, however...baby backs are not in the Pixie Purse's capability.  So, left with a half a rack of spare ribs in the freezer, but seriously undaunted, I began my quest to make a rib so tender, so juicy, that it would meet or beat any one's expectation of a baby back-style rib.  Here is the aforementioned hunk o' ribs....oh boy, we've got some work to do up in here!

Clearly, Doctor Pixie needed to make these gargantuan spare ribs at least look like baby backs, yes? So, before they thawed completely, I hacked them into baby back lookalikes....



Yes, that is plastic covering my bamboo cutting board - no cooties, here. Then, I created my own rub out of the following;

In a left-flowing concentric circle (HAHAHAHA) Brown sugar,  onion powder, onion salt, garlic salt, garlic powder, paprika, dry mustard powder, cayenne, white pepper, Emeril's Essence, and thyme. Now, we take our ribs to the spa, and give them a good massage on both sides with yonder rub.

Covered, and into a slow (300 degree) oven for just two hours.....

After two hours, I let the ribs cool slightly, placed them on a plate, covered them, and put them in the fridge until later in the day. 

In the meantime, I mixed a can of Great Northern beans with a can of black beans, added barbecue sauce, bacon, and onion, and let it go a-simmering in the crock pot.

Over half of a barbecue supper - done! I went out for a few hours, and when I came home, the beans were filling the house with the most tantalizing aroma! I then mixed up a barbecue sauce that simmered low and slow for a good half an hour...

 

 

Then, I mixed up the following for my Asian slaw (you've seen this one here before);

 

 

Black and white sesame seeds, rice wine vinegar, vegetable oil, sesame oil, salt and pepper, chopped scallion, carrot, cabbage and cilantro. Presto! Slaw goes into the fridge, and you are just about done!

 

 

Crunch-a-riffic!  Now, slather (sidebar note: I once answered the phone at a food company to hear a woman say that she thought the word "slather" was vulgar - just weird...) ahem...slather those lovely ribs with your sauce. And yes, in a pinch, you may use commercially-made sauce, just use a good one!

 

Into a 375 degree oven for twenty or so minutes, just until the top gets a little caramelized, and the sauce has flavored the ribs...the results?

 

 

Can you blame me for not eating in restaurants much?

 

What is your favorite barbecue meal?

 

What did Kitchen Angel think? Well, I think this may have something to do with it being National Talk like a Pirate day....but all I heard was a loud "ARRRGGHHHH"...and there she went!

 

 

 

Well, avast ye scurvy dogs....eat well, and stay tuned for that long-awaited scone remix. Love and kindness to all,

 

Pixie