Monthly Archives: January 2012

Baked Cod, Cajun Butter Rice & Peas

This is my first time baking cod. Usually, I bake tilapia. Used a variation of my from-scratch breading. I had some left over corn bread from Sunday dinner and mixed it with some of Beth’s bread. Baked it for 25 minutes at 400 degrees. Here is the results:

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Interesting Comparision

Yummy Baked Chicken

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Homemade breadcrumbs from homemade bread.  Added some black pepper, sea salt and paprika.  Made a coating mix from 1/2 cup of milk, 2 eggs and a little olive oil.

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Dipping the boneless chicken breasts in egg/milk mixture and rolling it in breadcrumb mixture.

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Placed in well greased pan and baked for 35-40 minutes at 375 degrees (until it was over 165 degrees)

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Some chicken gravy made from scratch.  REAL butter + flour, dash of salt & pepper and chicken stock.

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Baked chicken just out of the oven!

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The final product:  Baked Chicken, Mashed Potatoes with Chicken Gravy and Steamed Green Beans.

Confession:  The mashed potatoes were from a box.  But they did come from Idaho and I did use REAL butter!

Classic Pancakes

INGREDIENTS

1 cup unbleached all-purpose flour or whole wheat pastry flour
1 tablespoon sugar or honey, or to taste
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup milk
2 tablespoons canola oil
1 egg

INSTRUCTIONS

Whisk together flour, sugar, baking powder and salt in a small bowl. In a separate bowl, whisk together Pure Almond, oil and egg. Add flour mixture to egg mixture and stir just to moisten – a few lumps are fine. Cook pancakes on a griddle over medium heat.

YIELD 8 to 10 pancakes

MY COMMENTS

I usually double this recipe and get 18  pancakes using a 1/4 cup measuring cup.  I really recommend using 1/2 white and 1/2 whole wheat flour and honey.  It really makes a difference.  Many times if I have it, I mix regular milk with half&half.  This makes the pancakes a little richer tasting.  You can also throw in some blueberries, chocolate chips or anything else to add variety.

Sometimes Hy-Vee has flavored milk on clearance and I substitute that for the regular milk.  A word of caution though with these “flavored” milks:  they add other things than just flavoring & coloring.  So, I usually go 1/2 and half with regular milk because I have found that using it straight makes the pancakes less fluffy and a bit flat.

This recipe was from allrecipe.com

Pancake Breakfast for the Family

For the last couple of months I have tried to get up early and cook my family a good hot breakfast.  I’ve got it down that I can cook the whole breakfast using one griddle.

Today’s Breakfast Menu:

Turkey Bacon
Pancakes
Eggs

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Turkey bacon sizzling on the griddle.  Turkey?  Well, I’m not going to buy regular bacon because it is too darn expensive!  I’m not going to spend $3-4 for a pound of bacon!  I only buy the stuff on sale and only if it is under $2.50 a lb.   Plus, turkey bacon is supposedly better for you.  Good for pigs everywhere, for turkey’s not so much.

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Pancakes are cooking up.  Don’t flip until it’s bubbling!  I have a great pancake recipe that I will share with you.  It makes really fluffy pancakes.

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Normally, I would have used three pans to make breakfast.  Usually, I can cook the eggs on on half and either the bacon or pancakes on the other half.  Takes a little practice.  You need to slowly pour the eggs on to the hot griddle and make sure you are “damming” them up with your pancake turner so they don’t spread across your griddle into the other thing you are cooking.  It kind of is like hot lava, if you dam it up it will cook and make a edge.  By the way, I made the eggs with 4 eggs, a splash of milk and some sea salt and black pepper.

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Eggs are just about done!

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Well, here is the finished products.  A little tip: to keep everything warm while you are cooking other items, set your oven on a very low temp and place cooked food on plates or platters in the oven to keep warm.  Make sure if you do this that you don’t overcook and leave plenty of moisture because the oven will tend let the stuff keep cooking a little and you don’t want your creations to be dried out.

Now, if I just could get the boys out of bed, in the shower and at the table, the breakfast would be complete!

Spaghetti Sauce

This is a test of my video.  We are having Spaghetti tonight. It is Caleb’s (JC) favorite.  Started with a pound of hamburger, added 1 package of homemade spaghetti sauce (homegrown tomatoes from last year) and a can of Hunt’s spaghetti sauce.  I do this because Beth thinks my homemade is a little spicy and the kids don’t like that it is “chunky”.  The Hunt’s kind of tones it down.  I also added some pre-made meatballs that I got at Sam’s and was in the freezer.

Normally, I make the sauce in the morning and let it simmer in the crockpot all day.  Because I forgot to take out the frozen ingredients last night, I had to let it thaw out and cook tonight.  It still got to simmer it for almost an hour.

Please note, gentle readers, that I don’t recommend using canned sauce if it has high fructose corn syrup.  Hunt’s unfortunately does, but it was in the cabinet, so it was used.  I’m not only grumpy, but cheap.

I heard a radio ad the other day that the corn producers association is trying to lobby the FDA to rename HFCS to corn sugar.  Normally, I am supportive of our farmers, but can’t go along with them this time.  HFCS is a fine example of science at work, but it’s a cheat.

I can do that!

Last night Beth and I were watching podcasts on our AppleTV and came across a podcast called gardenfork.tv.  This was a podcast about this guy and his forays in to gardening, cooking and country living.  Beth thought why shouldn’t I do that? I’m messing around with urban farming, cooking and stuff like that.  So, GrumpyAdventures.com has been born.

Although I’m not always grumpy, I can very much be so.  Grumpygardener.com and grumpygourmet.com was taken, so I found this web address.  Might work out better because it will allow me to be grumpy is so many areas.

By the way, you can also check out my other website, YourVictoriousLife.com.  That sight covers my ministry and spiritual explorations.

Drop me a line!

Jonathon