Crock Pot Vegetarian Baked Beans

Does anyone remember the post where I discussed my confusion of all things beans?  Recently, Amy was at my apartment and pointed at my giant glass jars filled with beans, wondering why I had these in my kitchen.  The truth?  I received them as a gift.  And haven’t used a single one.  Amy suggested making baked beans with them.

I thought - hey, how brilliant!  I actually like baked beans.  And it would use up this stockpile of dry beans.  Perfect!

I asked Amy if she had a great baked beans recipe and she said no.  But she pointed me towards this recipe right here, which showed promise.

And I am here to warn you that this recipe is NOT a good recipe.  I brought it to a cookout last night and we were in a rush, so I didn’t even get a picture of it.  I debated photographing the dried leftovers but thought that I should keep it friendly here.  Cause you know me.  Always thinking of others.

But yes, this will not make good baked beans.  This will make dry sauce baked beans.  I was kind of confused on how the beans would get that familiar saucy taste that you associate with damn good baked beans when I added the ingredients to the crockpot, as there is almost no liquid whatsoever.  And I didn’t see how the recipe would magically create the necessary liquid, but I trusted it.  And, oh, how wrong I was.

I do give it props for being one of the few baked bean recipes that don’t call for pre-made baked beans.  I found it so surprising the number of recipes that are really just spicing up a can of Bush’s baked beans.  I wonder what Sandra Lee’s recipe for baked beans is? 

I have a category called Inedible, which I used for posts not about cooking.  I think this entry will definitely change that. 

Cheese Grating Tip

I read a lot of food blogs (seriously, a LOT) and I find that I am constantly learning new techniques in addition to new recipes. I also like to share. So I am going to share the most recent one that I found that I deem truly useful.

Martin and I don’t buy shredded cheese anymore because it is cheaper per ounce to buy them in blocks. I always have the worst times grating the cheese, however, because no bowl I own is ever suitable for me to grate the cheese into. If you’re like me and have been continually frustrated by this problem, you should do what I read about and grate over a paper towel. No more worries about grating properly over a bowl, no enthusiastic pieces scattering across your counter top and transfer and cleanup is easy peasy.

Many of you may have already known this tip but for a kitchen newb like me, it was pretty exciting.

Cheese

Last night, I made Swedish Rye Bread for Martin. To complete the Swedish experience, we ate the bread with slices of Jarlsberg cheese. Jarlsberg is actually Norwegian, but in my head, I equate it with Martin because his mom always had Jarlsberg or some other soft cheese to eat at their house. They would slice it and serve it on buttered open-faced bread with cucumbers and deli meat. Tasty.

While I diverged easily into the bread that I made, what I really wanted to discuss was cheese, as the topic of this post so eloquently states. For a long time, I was buying hard, dry cheeses, the kind that work well mixed in with food. Then one day, Martin made a startling revelation to me - he hated all these hard cheeses! He missed soft cheese! Down with hard cheese! Viva La Revolution!

So I started buying soft cheese and he still wasn’t completely happy. Case in point, I bought the Jarlsberg and he revealed that he thought he liked Monterrey Jack the best. Well, now I know, and now we have no less than 7 cheeses in our refrigerator.

And this brings me to my final point: how much cheese do you own and what kind and why?

Here is my breakdown:

Parmesan Reggiano: I keep this on hand at all times, because so many recipes seem to call for this. I like that it can last a very long time in the refrigerator.
Fontina: I bought this on a whim, to make Alex’s polenta recipe. I didn’t really like it and now it sadly languishes in our fridge. Also, it has turned an interesting shade of red in some parts. I can’t tell if that is because it’s hardened there or because I should throw it out.
Bocconcini: I was at the Milk Pail last week, which markets itself as an “open European-style market,” which basically sells super fresh produce and cheese for really cheap. This bocconcini happened to be $1 / lb. I used it on top of my pizza and it was melty, just the way I wanted. There is, sadly, one left and it might go unused.
Vermont Sharp White Cheddar: I grew up eating this stuff and love it.
Australian Cheddar: We haven’t opened this yet, but the guy at the grocery store said it was a great soft cheddar. I bought this for Martin.
Jarlsberg: I think I’ve said enough about the Jarlsberg.
Gejost: This is Norwegian caramelized goat cheese. This is Martin’s equivalent to my Vermont sharp white cheddar. Before I found it for really cheap at the Milk Pail, I used to buy it for $6 / tiny package at the grocery store.

Now THAT is a lot of cheese. I never thought I’d see the day my refrigerator had so many different kinds of cheese.

EDIT: I forgot some cheeses!

Hard Cheddar: I am not sure what the name of this cheese is called, but I bought it from the Farmer’s Market from a local cheesemaker. It is tasty, but hard, like Parmesan.

And Amy’s comment reminded me that I too have cream cheese - two types, in fact! I have plain and chive onion. Mmmm.

Okay, now that I think about it, the amount of cheese we have in our fridge is amazing.

Yogurt Tip #314678

For those who make their own yogurt, here is a pretty handy tip that I just learned about that I think makes my final product much better:

When you are ready to add the yogurt to the milk, rather than adding it to the saucepan and trying to “gently combine” as all instruction manuals seem to say, place the yogurt into a measuring cup (easier to measure out 1/2 cup that way) and then ladle a scoop of milk in. Mix until smooth and add a little more milk. Keep mixing until measuring cup is almost full and yogurt is very thin. Add back to saucepan and mix.

This has helped prevent lumps in my yogurt because, without fail, every time I thought I’d finished with my “gentle combine,” I’d pour it into my yogurt machine and it would be lumpy like coal.

Perhaps everyone else also knew this secret but I did not and thought I’d share!

I’m … Roasting a Chicken? And starting a food club?

My refrigerator is currently housing a 4-lb whole chicken. Not exactly an event to stop the presses. But I have decided now is the time for me to grow up and to not be a lame-lame-lame person. You have no idea how hard it was for me to not type chicken with big LOLZ afterwards. Please, be impressed with my maturity.

I’ve never roasted a whole chicken before and I used to be pretty okay with that. But now I’ve decided that I am missing out on a whole chunk (a chicken-salad and chicken-pot-pie and chicken-noodle soup chunk!) of life and I should do what I can to rectify it.

And in the process, I’ve also decided to reach out to my friends. There is a community blog called The Daring Bakers, which challenges their culinary skills on a monthly basis by trying out new recipes as a group and blogging about their experiences after a certain date. I don’t think I’m quite up to their level (I mean, I’ve never even roasted a chicken!) but I would like to try something similar, with a bigger focus on cooking rather than baking.

So here I am, about to roast a chicken. And I think it’d be awesome if my friends did it too. I’d like to try out the brining technique demonstrated here. So if you feel like roasting a chicken with me, follow the recipe and post what happened with your experience, what you thought, what you changed, what you felt, ANYTHING AT ALL, after February 24th! I’d love to hear what everyone’s experiences are but if I’m the only one, then that’s pretty okay, too.

Cheddar Grits and Hard Mistakes

I’m sitting here, talking to Alex, and discussing the grits he made for dinner and how they weren’t up to snuff. It reminded me of the grits I made before leaving for NC. The ones with lots of sharp cheddar that basically made me want to gag. Then I realized … I never really posted about that here. Or any of my failures. So my blog is unfailingly chipper and I sound like an amazing and capable cook when I am far from it.

Cooking is a learning experience and we learn best from our mistakes. For example, I will never take the heaps of sharp cheddar and whatever other cheese we have lying around the house and throw it in a pot to make grits again. Ever. Because it was disgusting and I love grits and that ain’t right.

I’m still a novice so I have many bad cooking experiences to come, most likely, but I would rank that one up there, especially since Martin and I could barely stomach it so there went a giant batch of grits into the trash.

What was your worst cooking experience?

Yogurt … again!

Our supply was running low, so I whipped up another batch of yogurt. Last time, we had 2% milk (the grocery store had run out of our usual 1%) and the yogurt thickened nicely in 3 hours. This time, we used 1% and it took four-ish hours to get to the same consistency. Do any yogurt gurus know if this is normal?

I also was pretty haphazard about the addition of the dry milk last time, so since I was more precise this time (and probably added less), this could perhaps have had an impact as well?

Home!

Back home, in my own kitchen. Yay! Look for posts to start up, but not too soon, as I need a few days of just salad and cereal to wind down from the calorie-induced comas I put myself into several times over the holidays.

Biscuits, sweet tea, calories, comas. Ahh, Bojangles. What can’t you do?

Jordan gave me a cookbook written by the chef of Magnolias. Some of you may remember this as the restaurant we ate at while in Charleston for Tommy and Penney’s wedding. Look for recipes from this to start showing up.

Sorry, guys.

Sorry for the lack of updates, guys. Home for the holidays means I’m not in my own kitchen and it’s been putting a cramp in my cooking style. Once Martin and I return to California, the posts will start back up again.

Dry Italian Dressing Substitute

Last night, I was going to make salmon but Martin decided last minute that he didn’t want it. Rifling through my cabinets, I noticed I had all the ingredients for Kjersti’s “Crock Pot Chicken,” with two notable exceptions: a crock pot and zesty dry Italian dressing. I figured a big pot that I watched over would do the trick and quickly thaw out my frozen chicken but what about the dressing?

There was only one solution: the Internets! I knew they wouldn’t fail me. One time, I stumbled across a recipe for a “Taco Seasoning” substitute. If there was a taco seasoning substitute, there had to be a dry Italian dressing substitute. Had to be! I declared there had to be and now I was going to find it.

Luckily for my bold declaration, there was. I’m posting it here for future reference and in case other people want to add a little zesty dry Italian to their meal. The original recipe called for salt but it was definitely way too salty that way, so I have omitted it completely in this rendition. And very nicely, too, you most likely have all the herbs needed already to make this mix. So save yourself the $2 / packet and make it yourself!

I will post the chicken dish later, which would have been heaven on a plate except it was way too salty.

Dry Italian Dressing Substitute

1-½ tsp. garlic powder
1 tbsp. onion powder
2 tbsp. oregano
1 tbsp. dried parsley
1 tbsp. sugar
1 tsp. black pepper
1 tsp. ground basil
¼ tsp. thyme
½ tsp. dried celery leaves

1/ Measure out all ingredients and combine in bowl. Use in place of Zesty Dry Italian Dressing packet.

2/ To make dressing: Mix 2 tbsp. of mix with ¼ cup vinegar, 2 tbsp. water and ½ to ⅔ cup olive oil.

Servings: 1 packet