New blog address

www.chefandrew1986.blogspot.com

I will be blogging at the above address from here on out.  Got a new e-mail address and couldn't add it to this blog, so I created a new one.  It still has all my posts on there.  Wouldn't want to lose them all.  I will probably be deleting this blog before too long, so go bookmark the other address, or whatever you do to remember the link.  I was sort of wanting a shorter link anyway.  This one was too long.

Chicken Pot Pie

We had a whole chicken ready to cook, so I baked it today and used it to make pot pie.  I used a recipe that Mom usually uses, and it gets really good.  Cut up carrots, celery, and potatoes.  Cooked them and mixed in milk, the cooked chicken, and green beans, since we didn't have any frozen peas.  I made some sort of biscuit mixture and poured it over the top, and baked it for about half an hour.

I also made a Pineapple Carrot Jello Salad.  I was looking though one of Mom's old cookbooks and saw it.  She said her mom used to make it back in the day.  I vaguely remember having it a long time ago.

The pot pie turned out runny.  It was good, had a really good flavor, but was runny.  I think I know what happened.  I didn't thicken the milk and flour mixture before putting it in the baking dish.  Bummer.  It was still good though.  Just sort of like pot pie soup.  Next time it will be better.

The jello salad was good.  It was a bit runny too because I didn't make it ahead of time enough so it didn't get time to set up fully in the mold.  Oh well, next time it will be better too.

Chicken Pot Pie Soup

Pineapple Carrot Jello Salad with Cottage Cheese in the center

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Beef Stew

Mom had two steaks thawing in the fridge, so I used them tonight to make Beef Stew.  Love me some beef stew.  It calls for lots of carrots, celery, tomato juice, and chopped beef.  The thickening is a bit different than others.  It calls for quick-cooking tapioca instead of cornstarch or flour.  Made some mashed potatoes to put the stew over top of.  It was good.  However, after making it tonight, I think I have to change the recipe a little bit.  It was sort of too thick and burned the pot.  I had to add water to make it thinner, and it still burned the pot.  So now I will cook the veg and meat in the tomato juice until it is ready, then add the tapioca to thicken it.  That way the tapioca doesn't thicken it right away and make me burn the pot.  That would be a good thing.

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Carrot Cake

I made carrot cake yesterday at work.  Used the tried and true recipe that I got from Grandma Schrock.  I believe it is the same recipe that she used when they had a bakery back in the day.  It makes for very good cake.  The cream cheese icing makes the cake delightful.  We didn't have any cream cheese at work, so I improvised and used Mascarpone cheese.  Chopped some walnuts in the food processor and made a Mascarpone/Walnut icing.  Used a real vanilla bean and not that cheap vanilla extract.  That made it wonderful.  I could almost just eat the icing until I got sick.  I think I like this version of the icing better than the original cream cheese version.  It seems lighter.  Not all that heavy cream cheese in it.  I tasted a bit of the cake tonight.  It turned out great.  The cake is moist like it should be.  The icing makes it just delightful.  Hey, I have an idea.  You go get some.  Black Bear Bistro & Cellar. 32/34 Main Street, Warrenton, VA 20186.

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Oven-roasted Chicken Fingers

I worked today so I didn't feel like making a big dinner when I got home.  Mom talked about making chicken fingers, so I made them, and cooked up some rice.  Cut chicken breasts in strips and tossed them in oil with seasoned breadcrumbs.  What all did I put in the breadcrumbs?  Umm, salt, black pepper, garlic powder, onion powder, parsley, thyme, and basil.  I think that was it.  Cooked plain old white rice with butter, salt, and pepper.  It was quick to make.  It was good.  Ate the chicken fingers with my homemade barbecue sauce.  Mom made a salad.  Jolynn helped.  Austin made tea.

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Pizza

We have a tradition in the Schrock household to have pizza every Saturday evening.  I had the day off so I made it again.  Made a Hawaiian again, like last week, but this time I used better ham and added onion along with the pineapple.  Made a Supreme with mushrooms, banana peppers, onion, sausage, and pepperoni.  Used a combo of cheeses for both of them, white cheddar, yellow cheddar, and mozzarella.  They were good.  The Hawaiian was especially good because of the good ham I used.

Hawaiian

Supreme

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Banana Pudding

I've been wanting to make Banana Pudding for a while now.  Every time I saw bananas in the house, I would say, "Hey, I'm gonna make Banana Pudding."  But then when I actually got around to making it, the bananas were gone.  So today I saw that we had bananas, and I made the pudding right away.  Made a basic cooked vanilla pudding, let it cool, then layered it with graham cracker crumbs, sliced banana, and cool whip.  Yes, the traditional way to make this pudding is to use vanilla wafers, but I didn't have them, and I wanted to see how it would turn out with graham cracker crumbs.  It was marvelous.  I might go eat some more right now.

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Baked Fish and Chips

Corned Beef and Cabbage is the traditional St. Patrick's Day fare.  Unfortunately, we did not have any brisket, so I couldn't make it.  Maybe I could have used another roast, but it was getting kinda late when I thought about that so I didn't have time to make it.  So instead I made Fish and Chips for dinner tonight.  Hand cut some fries.  Tossed them in oil and some seasonings, and baked them.  Baked the Tilapia with a seasoned flour breading.  Mom made cole slaw.  I made cocktail sauce for the fish.  It was good.  It tasted better than it looks.  Would have looked better if it would have been fried.  I don't have a deep fat fryer in the house, so I baked it.

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Bourbon Bacon Brownies

The other day I decided to do something different at work... make a bacon dessert.  We never had a bacon dessert before.  So I looked online for some recipes.  Seems like the most popular bacon dessert recipe is bacon brownies.  After a few more minutes of searching I found an interesting recipe for Bourbon Bacon Brownies.  It looked too good to pass up.  I copied down the recipe.  Was going to make it Friday evening at work, but we were rather busy, so I didn't get to it.  I made it Saturday afternoon then.  They are pretty much like regular brownies, except for the added bacon.  So it's like a salty and sweet.  Right after I baked them I got an order for them because one of the bartenders wanted one, and then some customers overheard and ordered one.  They said it was quite good.  Cool, because that was the first time I ever made something like that.  Now I wonder if there are other kinds of meat desserts?

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Pizza

I made pizza for dinner tonight.  Made it from scratch all by my lonesome.  Dough and everything.  Maybe I am starting to be better at baking because it turned out quite good.  I made the dough from scratch and then made a Hawaiian with ham, sausage, and pineapple.  I was going to make a Supreme or something for the second pizza but we didn't have any onion or bell pepper.  So I used sausage, pepperoni, and broccoli.  I used two cheeses for both of them, mozzarella and cheddar.  It was a success.

Ready for the oven.

Ready for my mouth.

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Restaurant review: El Rey Tolteca - Manassas, VA

My cousin has been wanting to take Austin and I out to eat for a while now.  He owed us one, or so he said.  So we went to El Rey Tolteca.  I haven't been there in a long time.  The rage lately is upscale Mexican cuisine.  This place isn't really upscale, but the food is great.  Much good.  They serve you chips and fresh salsa when you first sit down.  I ordered the Chile Verde, sliced beef with chile verde sauce, refried beans, and rice with two flour tortillas.  Yum!  I was full to order dessert or I would have gotten flan.  I make flan, and one day I will get authentic Mexican flan.  I want to see how it compares to mine.
As is my policy, I did not take any pictures.  I will instead direct you to their website, http://www.elreytolteca.com.

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Lasagna with a Twist

I love lasagna.  Lasagna and cooked puddings, two things I love the most.  Speaking of pudding, I should make banana pudding.  We have fresh bananas now.  Anyway, about lasagna.  Yesterday I was browsing MasterCook for lasagna recipes.  I came upon Lasagna with a Twist.  It is pretty much the same as regular lasagna, but instead of lasagna noodles you use twist pasta.  I used cheddar and mozzarella cheese.  I also made an Italian salad and baked some garlic bread that we had.  The lasagna turned out pretty good.  It is almost like pizza casserole though.  Pizza casserol just has pepperoni and maybe some mushrooms added.  Next time I will just make pizza casserole.  It's almost the same thing and just as good, if not better.  The salad was good.  Janina makes it sometimes too, so that is where I got the idea.  Chopped lettuce, grated carrot, pepperoni, sprinkled with Parmesan and Mozzarella.  It's good.

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Pimiento Mac and Cheese

The other day I got my Bon Appetit magazine in the mail.  The cover recipe is Pimiento Macaroni & Cheese.  It looked so good I had to make it.  It is your basic baked mac and cheese with a breadcrumb topping, but the cheese sauce is inspired by pimento cheese.  I used cheddar, Parmesan, mozzarella, and banana peppers for the sauce.  It turned out quite lovely.  This recipe is a keeper.  I also make some coleslaw and steamed broccoli.

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Minestrone

Tonight I made Minestrone.  Now there is really no set recipe for this kind of soup, so I looked online.  Found a recipe from Taste of Home that looked pretty good.  Called for beef, carrots, onions, cabbage, rice, and other stuff.  So I cooked it up.  Made some cornbread muffins and a salad too.  Let me just say, the minestrone needed salt!  After adding salt it was pretty good.  Good, but not great.  I think next time I make minestrone I will either find another recipe or just start adding stuff to make it to my liking.

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Meatloaf

I forgot to post this until just now. A week ago or so I made meatloaf for dinner. I used a recipe from Mom's collection and tweaked it to my liking.  I sauteed onions, celery, and peppers, then mixed in the meat and other spices.  Topped it with plain ol' ketchup, and put it in the oven.  I also made apple salad and deviled eggs.  If you remember, a while back i made Spicy Pickled Red Beet Deviled Eggs.  I didn't pickle the eggs this time.  They were good, but not as good as the other ones.  The pickling made them so much better.  The meatloaf turned out great.  The key to great meatloaf is to saute the vegetables before mixing them in the ground meat.  I also made mashed potatoes and gravy.  Num num!

Meatloaf

Meatloaf with ketchup ready for the oven

Apple salad

Deviled eggs

Yummers!

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Restaurant review: Anthony's Restaurant - Manassas, VA

I went with the family for dinner tonight at Anthony's Restaurant in Manassas.  I have been there several times before.  Love that place.  They do Greek and Italian food right.  Most times I get the Gyro Platter.  It is amazing.  Last time I was there I got stuffed grape leaves.  They were quite good.  Tonight I thought about getting the Gyro Platter again, or maybe the Gyro Pita, but I decided to go Italian instead of Greek like I normally do.  Got the Cannelloni.  Tube pasta filled with meat, topped with Marinara sauce and cheese, and baked.  It came with a house salad and garlic bread.  It was good...very good.  I was too full to order dessert or I would have ordered the special dessert, Red Velvet Cheesecake.  It sounded amazing.  Check out their website, http://www.anthonysrestaurantva.com/.  They have two locations, the one in Manassas and the original one in Falls Church.

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Black Bean Chili

I subscribe to Bon Appetite magazine.  In the current issue there is a recipe for Black Bean Chili with Butternut Squash.  Dad thought it really looked good and wanted me to make it, so I made it for dinner tonight.  I didn't have butternut squash so I used sweet potato.  And I didn't have bulgur, so I used barley.  That's right...I don't follow recipes.  I worked tonight so Mom made cornbread to go with it.  It turned out pretty good.  Not the greatest chili, but good for vegetarian.  I think the recipe needs some tweaking before I like it enough to call it a keeper.

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Chicken Lasagna

I have perfected the classic lasagna, which I call Five Cheese Lasagna, so I decided to branch out and try chicken lasagna.  I replaced the ground beef with chicken.  However, I didn't let it sit overnight like I was supposed to.  I only let it sit for about 3 hours.  That's not good because after I baked the lasagna it was a bit runny.  The noodles were not quite cooked enough too.  Oh, well.  Now I know I must let the lasagna sit a long time before cooking it.  It still tasted great, though.  Dad said it was the best one I made yet.  Yea, it was good, but it could have been better.   I also made garlic bread and a salad.  It was good, not perfect though.  Next time I make chicken lasagna it will be perfect, hopefully.

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Restaurant review: Siam Classic - Manassas, VA

Friday evening I went with my brother, sister, her boyfriend, and his brother to Siam Classic.  I have been wanting to try it out for a while.  So when Jon and Josh came down from New York to visit Janina we decided to go.  It is a pretty small place in Old Town Manassas.  We got there and the restaurant was about half filled with people.  The kitchen was rolling out the food.  It seems like they do a lot of carry-out.  We were there about an hour and a half and people were coming in left and right to pick up their food to go.

On to what matters...the food.  I got an appetizer, Fried Tofu.  I never had tofu before and wanted to try it.  It was pretty good.  The dipping sauce that came with it made it rather good.  Eaten just by itself was a tad weird.  For an entree I got Flaming Quail.  I don't really know how to explain what it was.  It was good though.  There were some quail eggs in it.  Yum!  The flaming came from some sort of alcohol they poured over it and ignited right before serving it.  Cool presentation.

Austin got the House Seafood.  It looked great.  He said it was awesome.  The rest of them got duck.  Duck is amazing.  I was thinking about getting some sort of duck before deciding on the quail.

For dessert I got the Fried Bananas and Ice Cream.  Two pieces of banana wrapped in some sort of dough and fried.  I forget what the dough was.   Served with a scoop of coconut ice cream.  Yum, yum!  The rest of them got Fruit Cheesecake.  It snuck a taste from Jon.  It was very good!

Again, as in my other restaurant review, I did not take any pictures.  I don't want to be that foodie guy who snaps picture after picture of the food in a restaurant.  I think that is not cool.  Check out their website: http://www.siam-classic.com/.  Nice place.  I want to go again some time for lunch and during the week when they are maybe not so busy.

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Shepherds Pie

I was at a lose for what to make for dinner tonight.  So I took to Facebook for suggestions.  One of the suggestions was shepherds pie, aka cottage pie. Thanks, Karen Czekalski.  I was thinking about making a Cajun shepherds pie, but didn't have the right stuff.  Then when she said shepherds pie I had to make it, even if it wasn't Cajun.  I found a recipe in one of Mom's cookbooks that called for ground beef, tomato juice, carrots, peas, onion, and some seasonings topped with mashed potatoes.  I didn't have enough white potatoes to make mash for the topping so I improvised and made mashed sweet potatoes.  It turned out quite good.  I also made apple salad, which in our house usually consists of chopped apples, raisins, maybe some celery and banana with a peanut butter, mayonnaise dressing.  I didn't have all the right ingredients, like mayo, so again I improvised and made the dressing with peanut butter, some milk, honey, and a bit of molasses.  Put that on chopped apples and raisins, and it was good.

I like to improvise while cooking.  I laugh in the face of traditionally prepared foods. :-D

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Pepsi Rib Roast

I was house sitting for my boss a couple weeks ago and watched the Food channel a lot.  During one of the Iron Chef challenges the Iron Chef used Coca Cola, or whatever it is there in Japan, and cooked a pigling in it.  So that got me thinking about using Pepsi and Coke in my cooking.  I researched it, hello Google, and there is actually stuff like Pepsi Roast Beef, Pepsi Steaks, etc.  I had a 2 liter of Pepsi sitting around, so I used that.  Put a rib roast in the crock pot with the Pepsi and a mirepoix (50% onion, 25% carrot, and 25% celery).  Since the roast was frozen I let it cook on low overnight and then pretty much all day Monday.  So by dinner time it was very tender.  The acid in the Pepsi helped make it tender, and it made the meat a nice dark color.  I also made my famous, at least in the household, mashed potatoes, gravy with Italian seasonings, and sauteed some broccoli.  I didn't really think the Pepsi made the roast sweet, like people said it would online.  It was quite yummy though.

The roast ready to cook.

Cooked roast.

It was good.

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