#12 - Beef Stew

By Ryon: Ok, it is time for me to play catch-up. I've been slacking on the blog and have a few additions that I need to make in order to get up to date.
First up is beef stew. This has become a weekend favorite for me to make. Mainly because it's awesome to eat right away, but even better if you let it sit and enjoy it a few days later. It always tastes better in the end if you take your time with this recipe, so set aside a few hours on a Saturday or Sunday afternoon to tackle this one.
Because I'm lazy, I usually just pick up a package of pre-cut stew meat at the grocery store to use in this recipe. I have made this once before with the end cut of a tenderloin and it was reeeeaaallly good, but any chuck steak will work. Beyond that, this recipe is incredibly simple: cook your onions, cook your meat (use lots of butter), throw everything else together in the pot and go take a nap! (Ok, not really THAT simple, but pretty close.) One change that I like to make every once in a while, to mix things up a bit, is to substitute Guinness for half of the beef broth. It gives the stew a slightly different flavor and is a great way to celebrate St. Patty's Day! Plus, you get to sip on some delicious Guinness while you cook. :)
And, as I said before, this stew is much like the curries... if you let it sit for a couple of days in the fridge, the flavors really meld together and make it even better. I sometimes serve this over rice or with Caitlin's favorite side, crusty bread, but it is just fine on its own. Perfect to enjoy on a cold, snowy or rainy day.
Rating: RHC

#11 - Guacamole

By Caitlin: Guacamole-mole! The easiest dish so far. Great for an appetizer with a baguette or tortilla chips. I have to admit...this guacamole is my go-to dish when I have to make something for potlucks, baby showers, or parties, and when Ryon is not around to make something a little more fancy. Everyone loves it, evidenced by the fact that there is never any left over to bring home. So perhaps it would be wise to make two batches! The most difficult part is finding ripe, but not too ripe, avocados. Barry says when he was a young buck in South Africa he used to throw ripe avocados at his siblings and watch them "go splat" and make a big mess. Oh, how I long for ripe avocados to throw at Ryon! Still, we have had pretty good luck at our local C'Ville Market. We can usually find a couple, at least the 4-5 that we need, that are not too squishy but not too firm.

Ok so here are the steps: after dicing the tomatoes, crushing the garlic, juicing the lime, and grinding the sea salt, I mixed them all together in my favorite yellow mixing bowl (which was a wonderful birthday gift to me from Ryon's mom, Sarah Clarke :o) Next come 4-5 avocados. After taking the pip out using a knife, it is easiest to scoop the fruit out with a spoon. Here is the most important part...use a KNIFE to mix the avocados in with the rest of the ingredients, literally cutting the avocados into the mix. It will end up very very chunky and totally delicious. This particular batch was made for one of my professors, Lisa, who currently is very pregnant with triplets!

You may have noticed my fancy new chef gear! My mom recently sent us a lovely Valentines Day package that included two chef hats with our names on them and two valentines day themed aprons. I have to imagine that she made the hats for us...I do not know many Ryon's :o) She is SO crafty. Thanks Mom!

Rating: SECCDI

#10 - Clarke Girl Chocolate Chip Cookies

By Caitlin: I have received numerous compliments about the deliciousness of these cookies and praise for what an excellent baker I must be, which should speak to how ridiculously easy these cookies are to make. In the recipe book, Barry says that he and Tanda had made the dough in 4 minutes! I totally believe it, though it still takes me a lot longer since I have to reference the cook book every step...I will work on that! Since I had a TON of school work I needed to do, I decided to make some cookies on Superbowl Saturday (Go Saints!). I used to always make these cookies for Jess Tanner, who is pregant with her Tanner #2, when she was pregnant with Cameron (Tanner #1) whose first birthday happens to be this Tuesday. We also had just found out that our across the street neighbors are pregnant with thier second child. So cookies for all of our pregant friends!

After pre-heating the oven, I mixed brown sugar with white sugar, and added the butter I had melted. This time I used Kelly's Irish butter, because I had inititally planned on making the "Monday Morning Cookies" but got a little intimidated. A touch of vanilla extract, and the baking soda next, making sure to get all of the clumps out. The flour next, I usually get excited and dump it all in at the same time. Finally the chocolate chips...there always seems to be too many chocolate chips for the batter at this point, but it is the perfect ratio for the perfect cookie. I like to use a soup spoon to scoop out the batter onto the cookie sheet; it seems to be the right size to get about 8 cookies per sheet. About 10 minutes later, when the sides of the cookies are slighltly browned, you have beautiful, picture book, chocolate chip cookies :o)

My absolute favorite part about making these cookies is how amazing the house smells. The perfect thing to make you place a little more cozy, and your friends (pregnant or not) a little more happy.

Rating: SECCDI

A leeetle hiatus

Our deepest apologies for our avid blog followers who have been disappointed by our hiatus. We have been continuing with cooking the recipes, so you can expect a plethora of new accounts of our attempts in the coming days. Unfortunately we have been a wee bit distracted by this...









And this...



Yes, that is an additional 19 inches on top of 10 that we got the weekend before. Seriously, we live in Virginia...it was 65 degrees outside two days before the storm. AND all we got out of it was that ONE of Caitlin's classes was canceled. Well... we did get to go sledding down the street that we live on (for those of you who don't know, we live on a pretty steep hill, that at 12:30 AM is void of the typical heavy traffic, thus perrrfect for sledding), and made a pretty cool sled run in our backyard. We bought one of the last sleds available in the city, but our neighbors made a sled out of two-by-fours and duct tape and also had some cross country skis...fun was had by all.


Now that the temps are climbing back into normal Virginia weather, Caitlin's report is done, and Ryon no longer has to worry about recruiting people to come to his program, we should be able to stay more on top of blogging about our progress. Beef stew, wings, cookies, and guac to come!

#8 and # 9: Dill Salmon and Garlicy Mashed Potatoes

By Ryon - Dill salmon may have been one of the first meals I ever cooked. It was mom and dad's anniversary and Tanda, Chapin and I cooked them dinner. We had dill salmon, asparagus... and something else that I can't recall. I remember it very well because, as we brought the plates out to mom and dad in the dining room, dad remarked on our presentation and how we had angled the asparagus just right to make a very pretty plate. I think my response was something along the lines of, "Yeah, I totally meant to do that!". I was full of crap. It was a pretty plate, but I think the last thing on my mind was how I angled the asparagus. It was more on whether or not I had cooked the salmon properly. The fish came out great. The rest was accidental aesthetics. But our success should tell you how easy this meal is to make.

To this day, when I cook salmon I usually serve it with asparagus and some kind of rice (normally pilaf), This time, however, I wanted to mix it up a bit so I cooked brussel sprouts and dad's garlicy mashed potatoes. Some of you who know me well may be surprised to know that I am eating mashed potatoes again, but as dad says in the recipe, I eventually came around (Cailtin's persistent requests for this side dish MAY have had something to do with this). For some reason, mashed potatoes used to make me seriously sick to my stomach. It was a texture thing. I didn't like the creaminess, or something. I think the real cause was that, at some point when I was young, I ate mashed potatoes when I already had a stomach bug and for years I associated the taste of them with feeling sick. Dad used to put aside a few chunks of boiled potatoes for me before he mashed the rest, so I wouldn't have to suffer. That is true love.

Anyways, the flavor combination here was really nice. Two very simple recipes. One very tasty meal. Proof that sometimes simple is best.

Rating: SECCDI

#6 and #7: Christmas Eve Chricken Prot Prie and Pie Crust

By Ryon - For the rest of my days, I am most likely going to continue to be bitter at my siblings over the fact that they banned chicken pot pies from the Christmas Eve menu 5 or so years ago. Ivor finds them gross, and I'm not sure how a human can have that reaction to a chicken pot pie but, then again, he finds those little frozen peanut butter and jelly "sandwiches" to be God's gift to cuisine, so... you do the math.

These are truly a labor of love. Hands on time for this, combining mine and Caitlin's efforts, was about 3 hours. And that does not include cooking time. So this is definitely a weekend recipe. Or holiday. Or mental health day. You get the picture...
We actually had to go shopping for several non-food items before starting this. I had to buy a new pot for this recipe because, after I bought the whole chicken, I realized that I did not have a pot big enough to boil it in. So I went to Marshal's and bought a nice stainless steel 3-gallon pot. Happy early birthday to me! We also had to get some oven-safe bowls to make the pies in, which took forever to locate but we eventually found at Pier 1. I like the round bottom bowls for the chicken pot pies, but after 2 hours of searching I decided I could not be picky.
The chicken part was easy. Throw it in the pot with a few veggies and enough water to cover it, and you can go take a nap for an hour and a half. Which I may or may not have done. Although I think napping caused me to cook this part too long because the veggies came out a little soft in the end. Make sure you don't go over the hour and a half cooking time on this. Set a timer... or an alarm. Tearing the chicken apart is fun. Again, primal urges are satisfied (see chicken salad recipe). But make sure you leave ample time for the chicken to cool, otherwise this exercise can cause an unpleasant burning sensation in your fingers.

After I distributed the meat and veggies evenly over the bowls (dad says this will make 6 pies, but our bowls were on the larger side so we only got 5 pies out of the recipe), I turned to making the gravy. The end result was the right consistency and delicious, but I think I did something wrong in the process of trying to make the roux because, after melting the butter and slowly mixing in the flour, I was left with a ball of... well... butter and flour. I'll have to ask dad about this.

While I was doing all of this, Caitlin took care of the pie dough. So I let her take it from here.

By Caitlin - Well the first mistake that I made was that I looked at the wrong recipe. A quick call to the BFC for a metric conversion question revealed that I was erroneously intending to make Janette's Pie Pastry instead of Pie Crust. I actually had the pleasure of making this recipe with Barry over Christmas, so I wasn't too intimated... and by "making" I mean I poked the holes in the tops of the pies at the end. Best instruction: keep use of hands to a minimum. Working too much with the dough makes it sticky and unmanageable. Another good tip is to flour the counter top and the rolling pin. Since I had been intending to make Janette's recipe I only had frozen butter. So instead of breaking it up, I grated it and then kneaded it into the rest of the batter. I tried to maintain nice chunks of butter, but since I had grated it they ended up smaller than I would have preferred and therefore the crust a little less flaky than Barry's. I then rolled it up in a ball, stuck it in the fridge for a half an hour in plastic wrap and joined Ry for a nap. After it was nice and cool, I cut it into sections, rolled each section flat (the flatter you roll it the thinner the crust will be), and then I stuck them on top of the filled bowls while pinching the side. To make it nice and pretty, Ry helped me cut a nice edge around the bottom of the dough after we put it on the bowl. Don't forget to brush on the whole egg. They really turned out to be quite beautiful, and while they took some time the recipe really is quite simple...but then again I just did the pie crust. Perfect for a blustery day!

Two went in the oven and three in the freezer for deliciousness any day of the week! According to the BFC, these can by cooked straight from the freezer, just add (to the original cooking time) about 10 min at 400 degrees and 15 min at 325 degrees.

Considering the fact that this took two of us to make... Rating= BFC

#4 and #5: Steak on a fire and Mid-summer's Night Beans

By Ryon: The description for the bean recipe says it all. This pairing makes up one of my favorite meals of all time. If I had to live on a deserted island for the rest of my life and take only two friends with me, those two friends would be steak and mid-summer's night beans. This is my comfort food.
We had a beautiful spring-like day on Friday and I thought that we should take advantage of the warm weather and grill outside. Dad is famous for his propensity to grill no matter the weather or the season, so this January BBQ was sort of an homage to him, although 45 degrees is like summer compared to some of the conditions he has grilled in.
We had Nick Hargus over for dinner, so I got three NY strips from the Organic Butcher here in Charlottesville. Their meat is always fantastic (that's what she said?), but these steaks looked particularly good. I let them sit at room temperature for about 30 min and seasoned them with salt and pepper before I threw them on the grill.
The mid-summer's night beans I got started well in advance, as this is a dish that does well if you have to let it sit before serving. I have messed up this dish before by not letting the beans cook down long enough and you wind up with a somewhat runny mixture, so leave yourself enough time to cook this properly. I timed this so that the beans sat for about 5 min or so before I added the tomatoes, parsley, and cheese and served it up.
Back to the meat. If you are new to the grill, pay close attention to dad's description of how to get a good fire going. It's very important to the outcome of your meat. I used a mesquite wood in addition to the charcoal and it gives the meat a great flavor. My favorite wood that dad uses on the fire is apple wood, but that can be hard to find. It gives the meat almost a sweet flavor. I cooked our steaks for about 8 minutes a side to get them medium rare and they were perrrrrfect. Some of the best steaks I have cooked in my life, if I do say so myself.
The beans were spectacular, too. Not sure what I did right, but they were also the best I have cooked. I added a side of mescaline salad with dad's salad dressing (I made this a while ago, so I'm not counting it as a recipe) and voila! As dad would say, "You'd pay $30 for this plate at a restaurant."
To go with dinner, we had some Duvel. Nick's favorite beer. Caitlin almost polished off an entire bottle of wine by herself. Quite an impressive feat. Nick was also kind enough to bring over a really nice bottle of Balvenie 15-year old single malt scotch and we enjoyed that as an after dinner drink. A great evening...

Rating: RHC