Fleming's Steakhouse Potatoes

If you've ever been to Fleming's Steakhouse, then you know how amazing their potatoes are. I could eat the potatoes as my main course and be happy as a clam. I found their potatoes recipe online via People magazine and knew I had to make it at home right away. The end result? Amazing! The potatoes taste exactly like what I always order at the restaurant. Dr. Sweetpea also loves the potatoes and told me to never lose the recipe.

Fleming's Steakhouse Signature Potatoes

(Source: People Magazine website) 

1/4 cup butter

3 small leeks, white part only, diced

2 medium jalapeno peppers, seeded and finely diced

1 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt

1 teaspoon black pepper

2 cups heavy cream

1 1/2 cups half-and-half

1 cup shredded cheddar cheese

1 cup shredded Monterey Jack cheese

3 lbs. russet potatoes, peeled and thinly sliced (I slice them into 1/8 inch slices using our mandolin)

Preheat oven to 350. Melt butter in a Dutch oven over medium heat. Add leeks and next 3 ingredients; sauté 4 minutes or until tender. Add cream and half-and-half; bring to a simmer. Remove from heat; add cheeses, stirring until melted. Add potatoes to cream mixture; toss gently. Pour mixture into a lightly greased 13- x 9-inch baking dish. Cover with aluminum foil. Bake for 1 hour. Remove foil and bake for 15 minutes or until lightly browned. Let stand 5 minutes before serving.

*I made mine a little differently: I layered the pan with a third of the sliced potatoes and ladled some of the sauce on top. Then I layered some sliced potatoes on the sauce and laded more sauce on top of the potatoes. I did this again third time before baking in the oven. 

Banana Nut Muffins

Since we had overripe bananas in our kitchen, I decided the best way to use all of them at once was to make banana nut muffins. These muffins are suuuuuuper easy to make and so tasty. Dr. Sweetpea loved them and took two muffins to work with him every morning for his breakfast. 

Banana Nut Muffins

(Source: Tyler Florence)

2 cups all-purpose flour

1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

4 overripe bananas

1 cup brown sugar

3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, melted and cooled

2 eggs

1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

1/2 cup pecans, chopped

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F and lightly butter 2 muffin tins. In a large bowl, combine the flour, baking soda, and salt; set aside. Mash 2 of the bananas with a fork in a small bowl so they still have a bit of texture. With an electric mixer fitted with a wire whisk, whip the remaining bananas and sugar together like you mean it, for a good 3 minutes. Add the melted butter, eggs, and vanilla and beat well, scraping down the sides of the bowl once or twice. Mix in the dry ingredients just until incorporated. Fold in the nuts and the mashed bananas with a rubber spatula. Spoon the batter into the muffin tins to fill them about halfway. Give them a rap on the counter to get any air bubbles out. Bake until a toothpick stuck in the muffins comes out clean, 18 to 20 minutes. Let cool for a few minutes before turning the muffins out. Serve warm or at room temperature.

English Muffins

Two of my favorite female celebrities are Chrissy Teigen and Jennifer Garner. Both of these ladies are gorgeous, down to earth, hilarious, and love to cook! Anyway, I brought up Jennifer Garner because she recently posted her pretend cooking show video on Facebook and I saw the video where she was making homemade English Muffins. If you know me in real life, then you know that I'm obsessed with English Muffins. Jennifer Garner's video inspired me to try my hand at making English Muffins at home and I'm so freaking glad that I did! I used a recipe that I found online and the English Muffins turned out amazing! They don't look very presentable buuuuuut who cares as long as they taste amazing, right?!? Dr. Sweetpea raved about how good they turned out and said they are the best English Muffins he's ever had.

English Muffins

(Source: Food 52 and Christina Tosi)

2 1/3 tablespoons active dry yeast (a little less than the contents of two 1/4 ounce packets)

1/4 cup lukewarm water

1 3/4 cup buttermilk

4 cups bread flour, plus more as needed

1/4 cup sugar

1 2/3 tablespoon kosher salt

5 tablespoons unsalted butter, at room temperature

Nonstick vegetable spray

Cornmeal as needed (or yellow grits, in a pinch)

Combine the yeast and water in the bowl of a stand mixer outfitted with the dough hook and whisk together to dissolve the yeast.

Nuke the buttermilk in the microwave for 20 to 30 seconds, or warm it over low heat in a small pan on the stovetop just until it loses the refrigerator chill; you’re not really heating the buttermilk, but ensuring that chilly milk won’t retard the dough’s rise. Stir the no-longer-cold buttermilk into the yeast and water.

Add the flour, sugar, and kosher salt to the bowl, turn the mixer on to low/medium-low speed, and process just until it comes together as a shaggy, droopy dough 3 to 4 minutes.

With the mixer still running, add the butter to the dough a tablespoon at a time. (Make sure it’s at room temperature—you’ll overwork the dough trying to incorporate cold butter into it.) The dough will look as if it is separating, and from this point on it will hang out at the bottom of the bowl, reaching up the dough hook like an appendage of the sandman but never fully coalescing into a ball again. Knead it for 7 to 8 minutes, by which time it should be tacky but no longer sticky and hold its shape.

Lightly spray a large mixing bowl with oil. Using a rubber spatula, scrape the dough from the mixer bowl into the greased bowl. Cover with plastic wrap and leave the dough to rest, relax, and rise (though it doesn’t rise so much as it expands in the bowl) for 1 hour.

After the dough has risen, put it into the refrigerator for 30 minutes to 1 hour to chill, to make it easier to handle.

While the dough’s resting, line a couple of rimmed baking sheets with parchment paper and cover them each with a ¼-inch-deep layer of cornmeal, into which you will nestle your muffins. (That’s way more cornmeal than will stick to the muffins, but whatever’s left over will be fine to use in another recipe.)

Scatter your work surface with a very, very fine dusting of flour, and very lightly flour your hands. Turn the dough out onto the work surface and knead it a few times to deflate it. Shape it into a fat, smoothish log. For traditional-size English muffins, pinch off pieces about the size of a handball (which should weigh about 60 grams). With lightly floured palms, roll the pieces of dough into neat balls, applying as little pressure as possible. The dough should be pillowy and tender and delicate and have the tiniest bit of spring to it. As you shape them, transfer the balls of dough, one by one, to the baking sheet: Nestle each ball of dough into the cornmeal, then pat it down gently so some of the cornmeal adheres to the bottom of the future muffin, grab the ball very gently by its sides (the parts you don’t want cornmeal on), and flip it over, gently patting the cornmealed top so the bottom picks up some of the cornmeal. Leave about an inch between the muffins, giving them enough space to stretch and rise as they may need. You can proceed with the recipe directly, or you can wrap the baking sheets of proofing dough in plastic wrap and put them in the fridge to chill for 30 minutes, after which time the muffins will be easier to handle. You can also take a longer break: wrapped and refrigerated, the muffins will keep (and improve) for up to 3 days.

Turn the oven on to 250°F. Warm a cast-iron skillet or griddle over the lowest heat setting possible for 5 or so minutes. You should be able to comfortably hold your hand very close to the pan and just feel some radiant heat—nothing that would make you want to pull your hand back. Scatter the pan with a thin, even layer of cornmeal and warm for a minute more.

Grab the proofed muffins one by one by their uncornmealed sides, dust off any excess cornmeal clinging to their tops and bottoms (you want a thin even coating, not a thick jacket), and transfer them to the pan, working in batches. This is the all-important nook-and-crannies-forming stage of English muffin cookery: you want the muffins to rise and griddle-bake slowly. You almost can’t take enough time with this stage. (And if any point before the final couple of minutes of cooking you smell cornmeal toasting or browning, instead of just warming, turn the heat down.) After about 4 minutes, their tops will begin to puff and dome: that’s your cue to flip them. Use a small offset spatula to flip them if you have one (and buy one to do so the next time if you don’t—your fingers will leave prints). After 4 or 5 minutes on the second side, the bottoms of the muffins should still feel airy and light. Once they’re at that point (you may have to gently cook and gently flip them one more time before they get to the handleably delicate stage), you can nudge up the heat slightly, and turning them every 2 to 3 minutes, toast their tops and bottoms. (Here the smell of toasting cornmeal is okay.)

When the muffins are toasted—tops and bottoms mottled with brown, but mainly golden—transfer them to a baking sheet, and put them in the oven for 10 minutes—transfer them to a baking sheet, and put them in the oven for 10 minutes to finish baking. Remove from the oven and let them cool on the baking sheet until they reach room temperature.

Use the tines of a fork to puncture an equator of tiny holes around the middle of each muffin, and then pry them apart into two halves. The muffins are ready to be seared (with a light spread of butter) and spread with strawberry jam!

Neely's Oven Fried Chicken

If you've been reading my blog long enough, then you already know that Dr. Sweetpea loves oven fried chicken. He grew up eating it frequently so it reminds him of his childhood. I make it often for him because it's a super easy weeknight meal. I'm always looking for new oven fried chicken recipes to see if I can switch it up for us every now and then. So when I came across the Neely's recipe, I bought the ingredients right away and made it for our dinner the same night. Dr. Sweepea RAVED about our dinner. This is another keeper in our household folks!

Pat and Gina's Oven Fried Chicken

(Source: Neely's)

Olive oil nonstick cooking spray

2 large eggs, beaten

1 tablespoon Dijon mustard

1 tablespoon honey

1 tablespoon hot sauce

Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper

2 1/2 cups panko bread crumbs

2 teaspoons salt

1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper

1/2 teaspoon smoked paprika

1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper

1/4 teaspoon garlic powder

1 (3-pound) chicken cut into 8 pieces, skin removed

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F. Fit a sheet tray with a wire rack and spray with nonstick cooking spray.

In a pie plate or shallow bowl, whisk the eggs, mustard, honey, hot sauce, and salt and pepper, to taste, together until thoroughly combined.

Add the panko, salt and pepper, to taste, the paprika, cayenne, and garlic powder to another pie plate and whisk to combine.

Dredge the chicken through the wet mixture, then the dry mixture, patting the breading on so it adheres. Arrange on a wire rack lined sheet tray, making sure there is ample space between each piece of chicken. Give the chicken a spritz of the olive cooking spray. This will help brown and crisp up the coating.

Put on the upper rack of the oven and bake until the chicken is golden and crisp. The temperature should register 160 degrees F on an instant-read thermometer in the thickest part of the chicken, about 45 minutes. Transfer to a serving platter and serve.

**One thing that I did differently was I marinated the chicken in buttermilk overnight before proceeding with the other steps. I think this made the chicken more tender.**

Lebanese Chicken Shawarma

Dr. Sweetpea and I absolutely LOVE chicken shawarma. It's by far our favorite Lebanese dish that we eat. I came across a Lebanese cooking blog the other day and when I saw the chicken shawarma recipe, I knew I had to make it at home for us too. The marinade is super flavorful and Dr. Sweetpea couldn't stop raving about how good our dinner turned out.

Lebanese Chicken Shawarma

(Source: www.mamaslebanesekitchen.com)

2.5 lbs of thinly cut skinless boneless chicken breast

1/2 cup of lemon juice

2 tablespoons of tomato sauce

4 tablespoons of plain (Greek) yogurt

3 tablespoons of white vinegar

1 head of garlic, crushed

2 tablespoons of olive oil

1 to 1.5 teaspoons of salt (or to taste)

1/2 teaspoon of ground oregano (or thyme)

1 teaspoon of paprika

1/2 teaspoon of ginger powder (optional)

A pinch of nutmeg powder

Rinse the boneless chicken breasts with fresh cold water then cut horizontally into thinner cuts of about ½ inch (each breast could possibly be split into 2 slices depending on thickness). Mix all ingredients in a blender, add to a bowl and mix well with the chicken, cover and let marinate in the fridge overnight.

When ready, grill the marinated chicken using a panini/George Forman grill for about 15 minutes on medium heat. You can also cook the chicken on a BBQ grill if so you wish. Once cooked, shred the chicken thinly as in the photo and it's now ready to be wrapped into a Shawarma Sandwich. Spread the chicken shreds along the diameter of a pita bread, spread a bit of Lebanese Garlic paste, add some salty cucumber pickles, some French fries, and some grilled tomatoes, roll and enjoy.

**I baked ours in the oven on top of a baking rack for 30 minutes in an oven that’s 430 degrees Fahrenheit. Turned out amazing!**

Classic Double Pie Crust

This is by far the best homemade pie crust that I've tried. No picture for this recipe but I'm posting it here for reference in the future. 

Classic Double Pie Crust

(Source: King Arthur Flour)

2 1/2 cups All-Purpose Flour or Pastry Flour Blend

1 1/4 teaspoons salt*

1/4 cup vegetable shortening

10 tablespoons very cold unsalted butter

6 to 10 tablespoons ice water**

*Reduce the salt to 1 teaspoon if you use salted butter.

**Use the lesser amount of water if you use Pastry Flour Blend.

TOPPING (OPTIONAL)

1 teaspoon milk

1 tablespoon coarse sparkling sugar

Whisk together the flour and salt. Add the shortening, working it in until the mixture is evenly crumbly. Cut the butter into small (about ½") cubes. Add the butter to the flour mixture, and work it in roughly with your fingers, a pastry cutter, or a mixer. Don't be too thorough; the mixture should be very uneven, with big chunks of butter in among the smaller ones. Add 4 tablespoons of water, and toss to combine. Toss with enough additional water to make a chunky, fairly cohesive mixture. It should hold together when you gather it up and squeeze it in your hand.

Divide the dough in half, and gather each half into a rough disk. Smooth the disks; it's OK if they have a few cracks in the surface. Smooth the disks' edges by running them along a floured surface like a wheel. Wrap in plastic, and chill for 30 minutes, or up to overnight. Or wrap in aluminum foil over the plastic, and freeze for up to 2 months.

When you're ready to make pie, remove the crust from the refrigerator or freezer, leaving it wrapped. Allow it to thaw (if it's frozen) or warm a bit (if it's been chilled longer than 30 minutes), until it's softened enough to roll, but still feels cold to the touch. Next, measure the bottom diameter, and up the sides of your pie pan. If your pan is 7" across the bottom, and 1 ½" up each side, that's a total of 10". This means you should roll your bottom crust to a diameter between 11" and 12", which gives you enough extra for crimping the edges. Place the crust on a floured work surface; our silicone rolling mat is a fine choice. Roll it to the desired width. See the big chunks of butter? That's a good thing. Place the crust in the pan by folding in quarters and placing in the pan. Or you can simply pick it up with a piecrust lifter, and move it that way.

For a single-crust pie, fold the edges of the crust under, and gently squeeze them together. Crimp as desired. It's nice to make a tall crimp, as the filling for a single-crust pie is usually fairly liquid (think pumpkin or custard), and it's good to have that tall "dam."

For a double-crust pie, leave the edges of the bottom crust as is (no folding or crimping). Once you've added the pie filling, roll out the top crust to the outside diameter of your pan, and place it atop the filling. Trim excess crust with a pair of scissors, then press the two edges together. Crimp as desired. A simple fork crimp is fast and easy. At this point, it helps to return the pie to the refrigerator for 20 to 30 minutes; this chills the fat, which ultimately increases the crust's flakiness. Cut a hole in the center of the crust for steam to escape. Or slash the pie's top surface several times. Brush with milk and sprinkle with coarse sparkling sugar, if desired. Bake... enjoy!

Couscous salad

Dr. Sweetpea loves anything with spinach, tomatoes, and feta. So when I saw this recipe for a couscous salad with all three as ingredients, I had to make it as a side dish for our dinner! It only took one bite for him to tell me to never lose this recipe. It's so good that I made this as our side dish twice in a week. Definitely a keeper in our household.

Israeli Couscous Salad with Smoked Paprika

(Source: Giada)

Dressing:

1/3 cup extra-virgin olive oil

2 tablespoons white balsamic vinegar

1 1/2 teaspoons smoked paprika (I used regular paprika)

1 teaspoon kosher salt

1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

Couscous:

1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil

1 1/3 cups (8 ounces) Israeli couscous, sometimes called pearl couscous or maftoul

1/2 teaspoon kosher salt

2 cups packed baby spinach leaves, coarsely chopped

12 ounces grape tomatoes, cherry tomatoes, or baby heirloom tomatoes of assorted colors, halved

4 ounces (about 1 cup) feta, coarsely crumbled or chopped into 1/2-inch pieces

1 cup jarred red bell peppers, drained and coarsely chopped

1/2 cup chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley

1/3 cup slivered almonds, toasted

1/4 cup chopped fresh mint (I omitted)

Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper

For the dressing: Whisk the oil, vinegar, paprika, salt and pepper in a small bowl until smooth.

For the couscous: Heat the oil over medium-high heat in a large saucepan. Cook the couscous, stirring frequently, until golden, 4 to 5 minutes. Add 2 cups water and the salt and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat to medium-low. Cover and simmer until the couscous is just tender and the liquid is absorbed, 9 to 10 minutes. Set aside to cool slightly.

Mix together the spinach, tomatoes, cheese, peppers, parsley, almonds and mint in a large bowl. Add the couscous and the dressing. Toss until all the ingredients are coated. Transfer to a large serving bowl and serve.