Tag: recipes

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot is a Runza?!

Posted on by John R

An ode to (and riff upon) Nebraska’s most notable culinary contribution.

Unlike most people, I actually knew what a Runza was before I set foot in Nebraska for the first time. (I credit Food Network for that knowledge on the periphery of my brain.) Moreover, I actually wanted to try it, and made sure I did on my first trip.

It’s one of the few things about trips to Nebraska I’d actually look forward to – the stuffed bread pocket with beef, cabbage, onion and cheese. When I no longer had a reason to go to Nebraska, I actually missed it. Occasionally I’d track down a recipe for Runza casserole and make it when I wanted the flavors (I’m far too impatient to make the bread pockets, so the casserole was much easier), and on my trips to watch FC Dallas play Sporting Kansas City, I’d often detour into Lawrence, KS to stop at the closest Runza restaurant to my route and pick up lunch/dinner.

Fast forward a few years, and an awesome restaurant opened just a couple miles from where we lived downtown (RIP, Local Urban Craft Kitchen). This was relatively early in the DFW craft beer boom, and one of the main selling points was a list of ~40 beers on tap from within 100 miles of the restaurant. I was sold the moment I heard about that, so I dragged Michelle to dinner there pretty soon after it opened.

As is my wont, I was much more fixated on the beer menu than I was the food menu, so I made sure to pick the beer that sounded best before looking for food. I glanced down the appetizer menu and saw bierocks. I read the description…

“Ohmigod, Michelle, they serve Runzas here!!!”

By this time I’m almost certain she had eaten my Runza casserole, so she wasn’t completely stunned when I mentioned that, but it was still a revelation. We ordered them, and they were delicious (unsurprisingly), and would get them every time I’d go back there for food and/or beer.

Long story short, there was no way on Earth I was going to start cooking/blogging without making a Runza casserole. I wasn’t born in eastern Nebraska, so I didn’t have the complete recipe committed to memory, but I had the basics. I was also going to be making this gluten-friendly, so I went down the mental checklist:

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Gluten-friendly Runza casserole

Author: John R Cooking Method: , Cuisine: , Courses: Recipe Keys: C cabbage G ground beef
Difficulty: Beginner Cook Time 60 mins
Servings: 8

Ingredients

Instructions

  1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Pour the mustard oil into a 9″x13″ oven-safe pan, then use a brush or cloth to coat the bottom and sides.

  2. Place a large skillet on a stovetop burner over medium-high heat. Add the ground beef and bacon and cook until the beef is browned. Remove the beef and bacon from the skillet, leaving the fat. Add the onions and cook until the slices begin to take on color, 3-4 minutes. Add the cabbage and stir to combine. Cook the cabbage/onion mixture until the cabbage has reduced by half, 6-8 minutes. Add ground beef and bacon and cook, stirring, for 1-2 minutes, then remove from the heat.

  3. In a medium bowl, combine the Bisquick mix, the eggs, and the milk with a whisk until well-mixed. Pour half of the mixture into the bottom of the oiled 9″x13″ pan and smooth out. Add the meat/cabbage/onion mixture on top of the Bisquick, then smooth out. Add half of the cheese, then pour the remainder of the Bisquick on top, smoothing out. Sprinkle the remaining cheese all over the top of the pan, then place in the preheated oven and cook until the top is golden brown, approximately 30-40 minutes. 

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Collected Recipes

On-demand gluten-free Bisquick copycat

Author: John R Cooking Method: Courses:
Difficulty: Beginner

Description

I feel like a heel for posting this recipe myself, because it is a direct copy of Gluten-Free Bisquick Copycat from EZ Gluten Free.

 

Ingredients

Instructions

  1. Mix well. Makes 1 cup.

Keywords: gluten-free, Bisquick.

Ground beef.
Green cabbage.
Onion.
Gluten-free refrigerated crescent rolls.

…record scratch…

Whaddya mean they don’t make gluten-free crescent rolls?!

I had to dig further.

I found a recipe1 from the Joy Filled Table recipe blog for a Gluten-Free Runza casserole. It seemed simple enough – the only thing that I didn’t have immediately at hand was gluten-free Bisquick, but they sell Bisquick everywhere.

Dear reader, I went to two different grocery stores looking for GF Bisquick, and I couldn’t find it. Back to the drawing board…

This sent me down a rabbit hole looking for a way to replicate GF Bisquick. I looked at several recipes, including some that required shortening/Crisco, so I ordered that. I then realized that the simplest recipe I found didn’t even include that (hence, the hijinks from the previous day), Instead I found a recipe2 at EZ Gluten Free that I followed to a T (I feel bad even documenting it because I didn’t change a thing about it, but it’s part of the overall recipe here).

Thoughts:

1) I’m kinda glad they don’t make gluten-free crescent rolls at this point. Otherwise I would have never found this version, and I like the biscuit topping more than the crescent rolls.

2) The tasting panel was unanimous – more cheese!!!

3) There’s nothing traditional at all about putting bacon in this. However, I had purchased the cheapest ground beef I could find at the store I went to…and it was 93/7. Fat is flavor, so I figured this needed some more flavor.

4) I’d add the bacon again, but I’d do it differently. I cooked the ground beef and the bacon together, so the bacon never got crunchy and completely rendered its fat. Next time I’ll cook the bacon first, let it get crispy, then leave the bacon grease for the beef and cabbage to cook in.

Verdict:

Taste: 7/10. There was nothing wrong with this that about 3x the cheese wouldn’t fix. I also used the Chihuahua cheese I had been working through because I couldn’t find the more traditional grated Swiss.
Availability: 8.5/10. It’s easy to have either gluten-free Bisquick or the makings for the copycat handy in the pantry. Beyond that, the only thing that wouldn’t be on my normal shopping list would be the cabbage.
Story: 8/10. There were no hiccups in actually cooking this, but the personal history with Runzas and the zaniness that was the previous meal (fed into by this) make for a pretty good story.

Administrivia:

I’m slowly catching up on the backlog of recipes. It would probably help if I stopped cooking until I finished that, but that would be pretty unproductive overall.

I’m posting this on January 14th. From January 1-7 I cooked 4 times. Since January 8, I’ve cooked 4 times, with at least one more meal being prepared today. This part of the resolution has been a success.

I’m also slowly working on making the site look better. It’s definitely still a construction zone though.

  1. https://www.joyfilledtable.com/2020/10/gluten-free-runza-casserole.html ↩︎
  2. https://ezgf.blogspot.com/2013/06/gluten-free-bisquick-copycat-recipe.html ↩︎

That corny numbers jive

Posted on by John R

That’s why on a scale of ten to one, friend, there ain’t no tens.

I’m way behind on posting here. I have been cooking and photographing, but I find it difficult to work, cook, eat, and post all in the same day. I’ve got a backlog to catch up on, but thanks to a series of random coincidences, my detached retina from the week before Christmas means I have today and Tuesday off without anything I have to do1. The plan is to catch up on posting what I’ve cooked over the past week or so along with anything I cook between now and then.

I found the base recipe2 I worked from on the Butter & Baggage website while looking for a way to incorporate the buckwheat rotini I had purchased into a hearty pasta casserole.

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Featured Recipes

Baked buckwheat rotini w/ vodka sauce and sausage

Author: John R Cooking Method: , Cuisine: Courses: Recipe Keys: I Italian sausage P pasta V vodka
Difficulty: Intermediate Cook Time 105 mins
Servings: 12

Ingredients

Instructions

  1. Heat 2 tablespoons of the olive oil to a large Dutch oven on the stovetop over high heat. Add crumbled hot Italian sausage and sweet Italian sausage slices and cook until browned, 5-7 minutes. Add onions, salt and pepper to taste, then cook until onions have softened, 4-6 minutes. Add basil chiffonade and minced garlic and cook for 1-2 minutes. Reduce stovetop burner to medium-low. Add vodka and San Marzano tomatoes (crushing by hand into pot or using a potato masher to get varying consistency), then bring to an uncovered simmer for 40-45 minutes, stirring occasionally.

  2. While sauce is simmering, preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Fill a good-sized pot with water, adding salt and 1 tablespoon of the olive oil, then let come to a boil. Add buckwheat rotini and cook 1-2 minutes fewer than package directions in order to achieve al dente pasta, then drain. 

  3. Add thyme, ancho chile powder, and heavy cream to simmering sauce, stirring to combine. Allow to simmer for 5-7 minutes.

  4. Place half of the ricotta cheese, half of the parmesan cheese, and 2 tablespoons olive oil in a medium-sized bowl. Add the drained pasta and toss to combine and coat.

  5. Add the simmered vodka sausage sauce to the bottom of a 9″x13″ baking dish. Add the coated pasta and stir to mix well. Add the leftover ricotta cheese and parmesan cheese and mix well. Slice the balls of burrata cheese and place on top of the casserole, then move it into the preheated oven. Bake until casserole is bubbly and golden, 40-50 minutes.

Note

If less spice is desired, substitute hot Italian sausage for crumbled sweet Italian sausage. Additionally, omit the ancho chili powder. 

Keywords: casserole, cheesy

I was eager to see if the San Marzano DOP tomatoes I purchased were really as big of a deal as everyone said they were. However, I didn’t want to go with a straight marinara sauce because that can be too acidic, so the vodka and cream in this recipe were appealing.

Thoughts:

1) This is quite possibly the best thing I’ve ever cooked in my life.

2) I was disappointed in the final product.

3) The panel of judges was unanimous that this was the best thing I’ve cooked since I started this journey.

4) Almost a week later, we’re still eating on the leftovers. That tells me that this recipe is easily 2-3 meals worth of food, and that it must be good if we keep eating it.

Verdict:

Taste (overall dish): 8.5/10. I’ve eaten a lot of good food in my life, but the vast majority of it was cooked by other people. There are very few things that I’ve cooked that I’d be proud to take to anyone’s potluck, but this is one of them.
Taste (pink vodka sauce): 10.5/10. Hence, the disappointment. That sauce is one of the best things I have EVER put into my mouth. I don’t have a solid comparison for it, but the canned DOP tomatoes are absolutely worth the extra effort and expense. It’s just a letdown that the casserole was less than the sum of its parts.
Accessibility: 6.5/10. Keeping these tomatoes in the pantry will be easy enough thanks to Amazon. I won’t normally have two types of Italian sausage, fresh basil, or heavy whipping cream at the ready without making a special trip to the store.
Story: 9/10. I had never crushed tomatoes into a pot by hand (and the huge mess I made while doing so makes me rethink doing it again – I think pouring the contents of the can into a bowl and going at it with a potato masher is the wiser alternative). I’m also going to be dreaming about this sauce for a long time, and finding new ways to spin it (moussa-kinda3, anyone?!)

Administrivia:

I finally figured out how to do a few things with this damned site. It’s still a huge work in progress, but I now know how to associate a picture to a recipe, at least.

I have some sort of vision for what I want this site to be aesthetically, but I don’t know how to get there yet, and I’m too damned impatient for my own good. I may need some professional guidance to kickstart me in the right direction.

  1. The plan was to go down to visit Michelle’s family for a week spanning Christmas. However, after having my eye surgically repaired, I was not allowed to lift anything more than about 10 lbs. for a few days, which means I couldn’t wrangle suitcases. After consultation, we decided it would be best for us to head down around MLK Day, so I scheduled a couple days off around this weekend. Then the Polar Vortex decided to impose itself on our plans, and the near-certainty of Ice Capades happening on Texas roads when we were planning to head back made it prudent to postpone again. ↩︎
  2. https://www.butterandbaggage.com/baked-pasta-alla-vodka/
    ↩︎
  3. I will be making this at some point. Not exactly sure how far I’m going to fuse the recipes, but this is a preview of an upcoming attraction. ↩︎

You can cook with this, or you can cook with that…

Posted on by John R

Is there anything more soul-satisfying than making a meal out of repurposed leftovers?

Don’t remind me how behind I am on getting posts written and uploaded. Every time I look up, I’m expecting to see a Sword of Damocles with a fraying rope hanging there.

Fortunately, it’s not that serious…yet. However, how am I supposed to let my accountability partners know that I’m doing what I’m supposed to be doing without frequent updates?

(FYI, this post is in regards to a meal cooked the evening of 1/4/24.)

Thursday’s cookapalooza left me with lots of leftovers…which was kinda the point, if I’m being perfectly honest. I had plenty of slow cooker mojo pork that I had not broiled (I pulled it out of the slow cooker and put it in a zip-top bag immediately to use the next day). I made too much rice. I cooked way too many black beans.

The traditional fix for leftover rice? Fried rice.
A traditional use for leftover miscellaneous ingredients? A frittata.

What if you combined them?

I found a post about a crispy rice frittata using leftover rice on the Bon Appétit website. I saved a bookmark to it, then when I went back to view the bookmark, I was unceremoniously informed that I had exceeded my views for the month without buying a subscription. To quote noted philosopher Stephanie Tanner1: “How rude!”

I went in search for other ideas regarding the crispy rice frittata. I really didn’t find them…save for a Yahoo! article2 that is nothing but a straight copy of the Bon Appétit story I originally found3.

The linked article is more about a process more than a recipe, but I still needed flavor ideas. Searching for ideas involving asparagus and goat cheese, I found inspiration in a recipe post by Food52 contributor Micki Barzilay for paella4(?!).

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Crispy rice frittata

Author: John R Cooking Method: , Cuisine: Courses: Recipe Keys: E eggs L leftovers R rice
Difficulty: Beginner Cook Time 45 mins

Ingredients

Instructions

  1. Preheat the oven to 300 degrees Fahrenheit.

    Put an oven-safe cast-iron skillet onto the stove and turn the burner to medium-high heat. Add 2 tablespoons of olive oil and heat until shimmering. Add leftover meat and sauté until most is well-caramelized, about 5 minutes. Place on a plate with several paper towel sheets to drain.

  2. Add another tablespoon of the olive oil. Add the asparagus and cook until softened and edges are slightly browned, 3-5 minutes. Remove the asparagus to another portion of the plate where the meat is draining.

  3. Add another tablespoon of the olive oil. Add the chopped red peppers and cook until they have taken on a little color and are fragrant, 2-3 minutes. Remove the peppers to the paper towel-covered plate.

  4. Add the last tablespoon of the olive oil. Add the shallots and cook until very dark, 3-4 minutes. Add the leftover rice and stir together thoroughly, then pat the mixture down and leave to cook for 10 minutes, or until the bottom layer of rice is crispy. Turn the burner off and remove from heat.

  5. Crack the eggs into a large bowl. Whisk the eggs together until well-beaten, then add salt and pepper to taste. Add the crumbled goat cheese and whisk with the egg mixture until well-combined.

  6. Assemble the frittata in the skillet:

    Sprinkle the handful of Chihuahua cheese over the rice. Make sure the caramelized leftover meat is well-drained, then add atop the cheese layer. Add the asparagus and red peppers next, scattering all across the top of the frittata. Add the marinated artichoke hearts, making sure to scatter well. Pour the egg and goat cheese mixture all over the skillet, making sure all of the ingredients are pushed down as much as possible to submerge them.

  7. Take the assembled skillet and transfer it to the oven. Let the frittata cook for 20-30 minutes, until the liquid has evaporated. Remove the skillet from the oven and let rest for 5-10 minutes. Use a spatula to run around the edges of the skillet, pulling the frittata away, then turn the frittata out onto a serving vessel. Cut into wedges and serve. 

Keywords: leftovers, rice, eggs

(No, I was not at all confident flipping that out like that was going to work. I had a fallback picture just in case.)

Thoughts:

1) I didn’t know my brain was capable of putting together the phrase “too much goat cheese”. There were definitely certain bites in which the goat cheese overwhelmed, well, everything else.

2) I definitely should have drained the pork I used a LOT better than I did. The dish was pretty greasy and ran all over the cutting board after I flipped it out.

3) One of the jury of my peers was not aware that this was an egg dish. After eating it, I can’t blame them. This was definitely the least egg-forward frittata I’ve ever eaten.

Verdict:

Taste: 7.5/10. I’ll definitely be using this technique again with different flavors in different proportions. There was just too much stuff and not enough egg.
Availability: 9.5/10. Assuming leftover rice, the most demanding thing this recipe requires is a large quantity of eggs. Everything else can be some combination of pantry staples and leftovers.
Story: 8.5/10. I had to fix a little bit of the top of the frittata when I flipped it out, but I’m pretty damned impressed by how it looked out of the skillet. There’s also the fact that I made a frittata where the egg was an afterthought, which is darkly humorous.

Administrivia:

I’m leaving this tonight while still being one post and recipe behind. I’m working on catching up, but…

Figuring out how to create recipes wasn’t nearly as bad as I had imagined it would be with the YouTube videos. I’m still annoyed by a few things with the plugin (or, more likely, the interaction between theme and plugin), but support has been very responsive thus far.

I had planned for weeks to be Monday-Sunday, but with an upcoming out-of-town trip in which we’re doing belated holidays due to my eye issues in late December, I may have to count the meal I cooked Sunday as one of the three for this week.

I’m also in the process of indexing a cookbook for the Eat Your Books site. I was not familiar with the site until recently, but it’s a very cool way to organize which cookbooks you own and, as they are indexed, be able to search the included recipes by ingredient. You can also index recipe sites and, as those sites are updated, the recipes automagically upload to be available.

(Originally I was hoping to be able to create my own recipes via the site, but all I could do was put ingredients in, not any sort of cooking instructions.)

The first cookbook I was going to index was considered too…overwhelming for someone indexing their first cookbook. It’s still on my list, but in the meantime I’m in the process of indexing a cookbook put out by the Shiner brewery. (You’d be surprised how many Welsh rabbit recipes there are without any of our leporine5 friends.)

The bigger point: It’s one thing posting recipes and cooking misadventures for people who know me and who, on the whole, aren’t taking this very seriously. Should I really go through the hoops of indexing all of my recipes for EYB and making them easily accessible for people who would use them as an actual resource6?!

  1. I’m not going to force references to sitcoms from my teenage years into every single one of my posts, but if there’s an opportunity… ↩︎
  2. https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/crispy-rice-frittata-where-leftover-100000764.html ↩︎
  3. I am nothing if not incredibly petty regarding paywalls like this. Don’t throw up arbitrary blocks to information; give me a reason to want to pay for content. I subscribe to enough newspapers and magazines that it’s a viable business model in my case. ↩︎
  4. https://food52.com/recipes/7184-paella-verdura ↩︎
  5. Yes, I did have to look that one up. ↩︎
  6. If I understand correctly, it would be easier to do this now as opposed to building up more of a backlog of recipes to add/index. I’m not going to do this until I get the site to where I want it to be aesthetically…which at this rate may take months. ↩︎