3000 miles 'til dinner.

Original MIL Mission #64: “Even Better The Next Day” Chicken Soup

I did a major wing-it with this recipe. Since I’ve been in an “easy-as-can-be” state of mind and because I had a bunch of leftover turkey from my Balsamic Glazed Turkey Breast attempt, I decided to make the chicken soup recipe with the leftover turkey instead. Plus I had all the rest of the recipe ingredients in my pantry already so this was a perfect quick weeknight meal for me and the hubby.

♥HOW I MADE IT.♥

The ingredients.

And since I’m all about efficiency these days, I started pulling together the ingredients during the day while the baby was asleep. That way, I can just throw them into the pot once I was ready to cook.

Here’s all the herbs and spices measured out into a bowl.

And the chopped up carrots, onion and garlic. Notice there is no celery since I didn’t have any on hand.

I skipped the browning the drumsticks phase for obvious reasons, deciding that I’d throw in the turkey at the end since it was already cooked. Here I am sautéing the carrots, onions and garlic in the pot.

I then added all the spices and what-not.

And stirred in the chicken stock. I also decided to use one of MIL’s suggested wing-its and added some tomato flavor in the form of chopped up cherry tomatoes I had in the fridge.

I allowed the soup to simmer for about 45 minutes. During the last 10 minutes, I threw in the chopped-up turkey so that it would heat through and mingle with the broth.

♥MIL MISSION #64: ACCOMPLISHED.♥

And here’s the turkey soup!

It was great! A very simple and satisfying soup, and the best part is that it is SO easy to make. Love. And most definitely, this soup is better the next day. Leftovers were wonderful with curried lentil wraps I made the next day.

♥PLATE IT, ATE IT, GRADED IT.♥

scale: 0 (not at all) to 5 (very)

Cupboard to table time: 1 hour

Difficulty: 1

Deliciousness: 3.5

Impressed Husband factor: 4

Leftover-friendly: 5

Original MIL Mission #66: Balsamic Glazed Turkey Breast

Now that I think about it… I do have turkey many times throughout the year outside of Thanksgiving. Turkey sandwiches, turkey sausage, turkey bacon. So why NOT roast a turkey during non-Thanksgiving? Plus as I previously mentioned, I’m all about easy recipes and what’s easier than buying a hunk of meat, making an easy marinade and sticking it all into a plastic bag? OK, maybe takeout… but not in LA traffic…

♥HOW I MADE IT.♥

The very simple ingredients.

I could not for the life of me find a turkey breast smaller than 4 pounds. So I guess we were going to have lots of leftovers! I had all the marinade stuff already in my pantry so we were good to go there.

I put all my marinade ingredients into a bowl, and here it is chillin’ before being whisked together.

And into a plastic baggie my turkey and marinade went into. Here’s the bag-o-meat a la marinade.

After marinating for 24 hours in my fridge, the turkey was ready to be roasted.

I put the bird into a cast iron skillet and into the oven it went. And fortunately enough, I have an oven-safe digital thermometer that we use religiously when roasting or BBQing meats. Love it!

And clearly, my turkey breast is far from being done. A chilly thirty-five degrees!

Once my digital thermometer read 165, I removed the turkey from the oven and started deglazing my pan. With some red wine, of course.

And here is done bird breast! Nice and roasty!

♥MIL MISSION #66: ACCOMPLISHED.♥

Who needs Thanksgiving anyways? Here’s my pseudo-Pilgrim dinner. I served the turkey breast with baked sweet potato and sautéed spinach, Paleo-style (which seems to be all the rage right now, along with Crossfit and Pinterest).

The deglazed sauce is a must for that extra oomph of flavor, and loads of heart-healthy butter on the yam as well! Hubby liked the meal, and there’s nothing wrong with a little nostalgia for the holidays again.

♥PLATE IT, ATE IT, GRADED IT.♥

scale: 0 (not at all) to 5 (very)

Cupboard to table time: 1 hour, 55 minutes (10 minutes prep, 1 hour, 45 minutes roasting time) + 24 hours marination time

Difficulty: 1

Deliciousness: 3.5 (my turkey breast was still a bit dry despite the thermometer, but the deglaze sauce was the saving grace)

Impressed Husband factor: 4

Leftover-friendly: 5

Original MIL Mission #68: Corn & Potato Chowder

And… I’m back! Three months into new motherhood, and I think I’m getting the hang of everything and able to do more during the day. Which means cooking. I haven’t totally been MIA from the kitchen, but I’ve been depending on lots of easy, tried and true recipes that I can make quickly while my daughter Maelle is napping or busying herself in her crib. Which usually means I can get away for 20 - 30 minutes. The rest of the time includes me carrying Maelle while cooking one-handed. Thus the need for easy-peasy recipes!

And corn & potato chowder falls under this category. Chowder is great comfort food on a cold evening, and yes… it does get chilly in LA from time to time. So I decided to make the chowder on one of these said chilly nights, which means a shivering 45 degrees!

♥HOW I MADE IT.♥

Here are the ingredients. 

And is that REAL bacon you spy? Why, yes it is! The hubby and I have slowly been re-incorporating pork into our diet. We don’t do it much but we also want to expand our culinary adventures to include the pig variety. As long as it’s the good stuff.

Here is said pig meat frying in the the pot.

Once the bacon was nice and crispy, I transferred it to some paper towels to drain. Real bacon bits!

Next, I added the butter, potatoes and onions to the bacon fat. Whew!! Still having trouble processing working with pork, but I’m sure it will be delicious.

And then I added the corn, chicken stock, jalapeño and spices, brought to a boil, and let simmer.

After a bit, I added the evaporated milk and although it didn’t say so in the recipe, I added the bacon bits back into the soup. Why waste all that crunchy stuff when I had come this far?

Then I simmered the soup to let the flavors combine.

♥MIL MISSION #68: ACCOMPLISHED.♥

Yum! Look at all that chunky, creamy goodness. This chowder totally hit the spot. The hubby loved it and said the potatoes were cooked perfectly! I have to credit Maelle, who was cooking right alongside with me, for making this dish so yummy. And who doesn’t like corn and potatoes… and now, bacon!!  I didn’t have any parsley, green onion or cilantro on hand, so I ended up garnishing the chowder with some chopped dill because doesn’t dill go well with potatoes?

Per MIL’s suggestion, I also made some beer bread to serve with the chowder. And I have to admit, I’m proud of this loaf since my first attempt didn’t turn out as fluffy (although still delicious). Look at how beautiful the bread turned out!

Overall, the meal was delicious and satisfying… and relatively easy to make with baby in tow!

♥PLATE IT, ATE IT, GRADED IT.♥

scale: 0 (not at all) to 5 (very)

Cupboard to table time: 1 hour, 15 minutes

Difficulty: 1

Deliciousness: 5

Impressed Husband factor: 5 

Leftover-friendly: 5

Original MIL Mission #57: Poached Lemon Cheesecake

Cheesecake is one of my all-time favorite desserts, and I like all varieties. Baked, poached, fruited, plain. Whatever. I’ve asked MIL for a good recipe in the past, so I was super excited to try this one (lemon being a favorite dessert flavor for me too — one of my wedding cakes was lemon!), but I’ve always been intimidated to try making one since it seemed complicated.

Well, I figured it was time to face my fears. I decided to make it for a baby shower my friends were throwing for me. And yes, you heard right. I’m finally outing myself that me and the hubby are expecting a little one — due next week, in fact! And second, yes, I did make something for my own baby shower. Weird, yes. But I insisted! If I didn’t make this cheesecake for others, I guarantee I would have eaten the whole thing myself!

♥HOW I MADE IT.♥

The ingredients.

First, I prepared my pan for the bain-marie process.

And then squeezed my fresh lemon juice. Check out the lemon carcasses in the background.

And then finished up the lemon-y part of this recipe with a bit of zest.

Next came my favorite part — the easy food processor part. Really? This is all I needed to do to make yummy cheesecake? Cream cheese, eggs, sugar, lemon-y parts in…

Creamy goodness out!

I poured the creamy goodness out and started the sour cream topping portion.

And then all went into the bain-marie bath in the oven, and in the cheesecake went into its own sauna bath of fun.

And close-up of done poached cheesecake. I made sure the cheesecake felt firm, let it cool at room temp and then chilled for several hours before serving.

♥MIL MISSION #57: ACCOMPLISHED.♥

Ta-da! Cheesecake mission accomplished! I added some fresh strawberries on top to make it look prettier and since that just seemed like the right thing to do. As it’s the tail end of summer crops (in L.A. that is), I wanted to incorporate this last batch of berries before they were gone ‘til next season.

And here’s the cheesecake dug into, with the cute little owl cake pops that decorated the table.

All in all, making cheesecake was much easier than I thought. I would definitely make this again, and in fact, I’m ready to try other methods of making cheesecake. Baked, crusted — bring it on!

♥PLATE IT, ATE IT, GRADED IT.♥

scale: 0 (not at all) to 5 (very)

Cupboard to table time: Approximately 4.5 hours (1.5 hours for prep and baking; 3 hours for chilling)

Difficulty: 2 (like I said, much easier than I thought!)

Deliciousness: 5 

Impressed crowd factor: 4 (they loved it but have to dock a point because of all the requests I had for a crust)

Leftover-friendly: 0 (not when making for a sweet-lovin’ crowd!)

Original MIL Mission #61: Chilled Zucchini Soup with Fresh Herbs

I admit — when I first saw this mission, I wasn’t sure what to make of it. First of all, I’ve never had zucchini soup, nor have I ever considered it. Second, I’ve never been a huge fan of chilled soup. The only one I could think of is gazpacho, and my opinion of gazpacho is “meh.” I’m more of the creamy tomato soup, chunky corn chowder or hearty bean varieties myself.

But it was a warmish Sunday afternoon, and me and the hubby have been trying to have the occassional meatless day, and I thought chilled zucchini soup would be a good experiment.

♥HOW I MADE IT.♥

The ingredients.

First off, I got to chopping my veggies. Pretty easy stuff.

Then tossed them into a pan for a quick stir fry.

I then put the pan into the oven to finish cooking. While the veggies baked, I chopped the herb part of the recipe and zested some lemon.

After about 25 minutes, my veggies in the oven came out looking quite browned and lovely. Smelled good!

I threw everything into the processor.

And processed away. Again… SO EASY. Love that machine.

And then I slowly poured in the chicken stock while the processor kept doing its thang. It was getting steamy in there!

And last but not least, I added a dollop of yogurt into the pureed goodness.

♥MIL MISSION #61: ACCOMPLISHED.♥

All I could say is… YUM!  I took MIL’s cue and garnished the soup with some basil. The soup was delicious! It had this tangy freshness to it, and it was amazingly satisfying. I served it with a baked yam and some fresh bread and butter (see… vegetarian and nutritious!), and it was a perfect mid-day meal for a warm day.

And did I mention it was so easy to make? I may have changed my mind about chilled soups.

♥PLATE IT, ATE IT, GRADED IT.♥

 scale: 0 (not at all) to 5 (very)

Cupboard to table time: Approximately 2 hours (including chill time)

Difficulty: 1

Deliciousness: 5 

Impressed husband factor: 5

Leftover-friendly: 0 (none leftover!)

Original MIL Mission #59: Dill & Sour Cream Potato Salad

And the last of the recipes I made for our end-of-summer bash: the quintessential BBQ dish, potato salad! You know, I’m not a fan of mayonnaise in general, but funny thing is that I love me some potato salad! And I love tuna salad and chicken salad, but for some reason, I don’t like mayonnaise any other way. Call me weird.

So I was excited to make this dish since I’ve had MIL’s potato salad (and she has several versions, which are all delicious), and it was worth every mayonnaisey bite.

♥HOW I MADE IT.♥

Here’s what I was working with:

I started off with rinsing my potatoes. Easy enough.

And then I had to cut away the dark spots. You’d think this was easy enough, but I wondered which were the dark spots — Were they bruises? Were they all the tiny little potato “eyes”? How much do I cut off? Hmmm… so many questions.

So I took the safe route and chopped all the “dark spots” that I could see. What do you think — is this too much?

Oh well… too late. After all the potatoes had been de-spotted, I plopped them into a pot, covered with cold, salted water and let them boil…

… partially covered for about 25 minutes.

After 25 minutes, the potatoes were definitely tender and offered no resistance to the tip of my knife. Surrender ye taters!!

And then I drained the potatoes and set them aside to cool off.

Meanwhile, I made the dressing by mixing together the herbs, mustard, mayo, sour cream and lemon juice. And I admit, working with such a large mount of mayo made me shudder a bit. I told you — weird.

Then I cubed my potatoes and mixed it with the dressing in a large bowl. I probably used less than half of the dressing since I don’t like my potato salads overly mayonaised.

♥MIL MISSION #59: ACCOMPLISHED.♥

And potato salad is served! Here was a small bowlful left of the delicious side since most of our house party guests digged in voraciously. I received lots of compliments and requests for the recipe so assuming this was a job well done. (Of course I referred them to this here lovely blog for the recipe… and more!) Potato salad is always a crowd favorite, and the leftover potato salad served me and the hubby nicely the next day.

So with that, I say good bye to summer. It was grand. Fall, I’m ready for you!

♥PLATE IT, ATE IT, GRADED IT.♥

 scale: 0 (not at all) to 5 (very)

Cupboard to table time: 1 hour, 30 minutes

Difficulty: 1

Deliciousness: 5 (people loved it!)

Impressed crowd factor: 5

Leftover-friendly: 5

Original MIL Mission #58: Harvest Grains Salad with Fresh Herbs.

I admit… I’ve been slacking a bit on the cooking front as I’ve been too busy enjoying the coming of Fall. I love Fall. Fall is my most favorite of seasons, when the weather cools down and a hint of the holidays is just around the corner. But it’s also a sad farewell to the hot and carefree days of summer. So to bid adieu, the hubby and I hosted a farewell-to-summer BBQ at our house this past Labor Day weekend (I know… that was three weeks ago. I’ve also been slacking on the blogging updates!), and I thought it would be a good opportunity to take on some MIL missions!

The first of them was the Harvest Grains salad, which I had a taste preview of earlier in the summer when MIL made it for a family reunion gathering. It was so simple and tasty, and everyone loved it as leftovers. So I was sure this was to be a crowd pleaser for our BBQ.

♥HOW I MADE IT.♥

Here are my ingredients. Lucky for us, Trader Joes is a staple in So Cal, so no need to make a multigrain mix from scratch — thank goodness!

I made a double serving of this recipe so that I could feed the masses, so first thing’s first — dump the whole package of Harvest Grains into a pot of boiling water and allow to cook.

While the grains cooked, I got to working on chopping my ingredients. I love that you can just about use any kind of herb for this dish. I decided to use cilantro, chives, parsley and dill. Green invasion!

And then put all my chopped goodness into a bowl, ready to be tossed with the grains once they were ready.

And approximately 12 minutes later… voila! After a little fluffing, they were ready!

Cooled the grains a bit and then tossed them into the bowl of chopped veggies, adding the lemon, olive oil, vinegar and spices.

♥MIL MISSION #58: ACCOMPLISHED.♥

Super easy peasy. I love all the colors in this dish — they just brighten up any table or meal. The dish came out great. All the guests dived in, and it was a perfect end-of-summer dish that makes use of garden vegetables and herbs. The next time I make this dish, I may use a little less olive oil. It didn’t affect the dish in any way, it’s just my personal preference. Otherwise… perfect!

♥PLATE IT, ATE IT, GRADED IT.♥

scale: 0 (not at all) to 5 (very)

Cupboard to table time: 40 min.

Difficulty: 1

Deliciousness: 5

Impressed crowd factor: 5 (my friends are always impressed when I make something, but I have even more reinforcement this time around when my friend’s little boy cleaned off his plate of Harvest Grains salad and asked for more of it, and only that!)

Leftover-friendly: 5

Original MIL Mission #55: Chicken Tikka

I love Indian food. And when it comes to eating Indian cuisine, I usually end up ordering the same 5 items – saag paneer (spinach with cheese), gobi aloo (cauliflower with potatoes), basmati rice, naan bread, and… you guessed it, chicken tikka masala. Now I assumed this recipe was going to be similar to chicken tikka masala so I was super excited to try out an Indian dish!

♥HOW I MADE IT.♥

The ingredients.

Thank goodness MIL stocked my pantry with spices! This recipe uses a myriad of different spices that I probably wouldn’t have on hand without her in my life. I had all the spices except for turmeric. But according to the wing-it’s, I could substitute with the other spices and ne’er could tell the difference.

So I confidently winged it and felt that my past year and a half of cooking experience gave me enough skills to eyeball everything. My spice concoction.

So using my trusty Cuisinart, I pulsed the garlic and ginger and then added cilantro, spices, lemon juice and yogurt – mixing it all together into a nice, creamy sauce. I used chicken breast pieces and stuck them in a ziploc bag to marinate during the day. I actually prepared the dish in the morning before work so the chicken would marinate all day in the fridge – props for me thinking ahead!

Later on that evening…

It was so easy to take out the marinated chicken and just bake! I baked the chicken in the oven since the grill is the hubby’s domain.

♥MIL MISSION #50: ACCOMPLISHED.♥ 

I served the chicken tikka with basmati rice and sautéed spinach (not Indian spiced, but just cooked with some onions and garlic). I was excited to try my first Indian dish! So the hubby and I took our first bite, and after a few moments… we just looked at each other with an inquisitive expression. This did NOT taste like the chicken tikka I have grown to know and love.

Bottom line: I think my wing-it with the spices didn’t quite work out. I’m not sure what spice it was, but there was an overwhelming licorice taste to the chicken. And it was SUPER spicy. And I like spicy. But this was too much.

So much for confident eyeballing.

Needless to say, we finished our meal, but I wouldn’t call it delicious. My chicken was a bit overdone too. I wanted to give it a chance though and thought the spices might settle down the next day, so I packed leftovers for lunch the next day. And nope, next day… same experience, same taste.

Oh well. *sigh*

I suppose this attempt should be chalked up to a lesson learned. But I definitely want to try this recipe again and fiddle with the spices. And oh yes, it will be better next time.

♥PLATE IT, ATE IT, GRADED IT.♥ 

scale: 0 (not at all) to 5 (very) 

Cupboard to table time: Approximately 11 hours (35 minutes of prep/baking time, the rest for marinating time)

Difficulty: 1 

Deliciousness: 2

Impressed Husband factor: 1 (yeah, not so much.)

Leftover-friendly: 3

Original MIL Mission #50: Apple-Almond Tart

The hubby and I spent the July 4^th long weekend baking in the hot, and I mean HOT, desert sun of Palm Springs. But that didn’t take away from our fun! We holed up in a beautiful home with 6 of our closest friends, including four ‘lil ones to help spice up our weekend, and also celebrated the hubby’s birthday. And guess who made an appearance – none other than MIL herself! Needless to say, all friends were thrilled to have her during the weekend.

And since these types of family fun weekends usually center around us gorging ourselves, I figured the weekend presented a great opportunity to make a crowd pleaser like the apple-almond tart.

♥HOW I MADE IT.♥

Here are the simple and sweet ingredients.

I wanted to simplify things a bit so I decided to pre-make part of the tart prior to our road trip and finish off baking at Palm Springs. MIL told me that the tart is best the day it’s baked.

So I first started off with making the tart crust. I didn’t have any leftover dough, but homemade crust isn’t that hard to make I realize. I partially baked the crust for 5 minutes the night before we left and froze for safe keeping during the drive.

I then toasted my almonds…

 … and Cuisinarted my wet ingredients. I combined the ground toasted almonds with the egg mixture and poured the filling into a container for transport to Palm Springs. 

{Fast forward to Palm Springs. I’ll spare you the boring car drive.}

Now that my crust, almond-egg mixture and whole apples had made it safely to our vacation house, I proceeded to cut the apples into ¾ inch chunks. And this is when it’s wonderful to have MIL around when doing an attempt. 

Instead of baking the apples in the oven, MIL told me I could just cook the apples over the stovetop with some butter. The idea is to partially cook the apples before they’re put into the tart crust and finished off in the oven. Just make sure they are softened but not all the way. 

Then we drained the cooked apples so that the tart wouldn’t get too mushy. 

 And then into the tart shell the apples went, along with the almond-egg mixture and a sprinkling of slivered almonds on top! And see… we had a little extra-bit-of-everything for a mini-me tart. 

♥MIL MISSION #50: ACCOMPLISHED.♥ 

Success! We dusted a bit of powdered sugar on top so it would look prettier.

 And I think the little munchkin in the background would agree. Yes, she will be getting the mini-me tart.

 There were a bunch of wing-it’s used during this attempt, but all under the watchful eye and counsel of MIL. So everything turned out just fine. I brought the tart over to another houseful of friends who also happened to be in Palm Springs for the weekend, and everything was gobbled up! Thank goodness I didn’t have to eat the whole thing!

And I agree with fellow DIL that whipped cream is a MUST with this recipe.

I just have to mention that I also baked Ashley’s Banana Bread and the leftover dough from my first Incredible Chocolate Chip Cookies attempt. And they were all consumed with glowing reviews from the friends. I told you it was a sugar smorgasborg!

♥PLATE IT, ATE IT, GRADED IT.♥ 

scale: 0 (not at all) to 5 (very) 

Cupboard to table time: Approximately 2 hours total

Difficulty: 2 (but only because it’s fun to cook for/around friends)

Deliciousness: 4

Impressed Husband + Friends factor: 5 (they were just impressed that I could make a tart crust from scratch!)

Leftover-friendly: 5

Original MIL Mission #47: Chicken Marbella

I didn’t really know what Chicken Marbella was. Was it like Chicken Marsala? Because that has become one of my go-to recipes at home now. And MIL mentions that Chicken Marbella is one of her favorite recipes, so it MUST be a good time. Marbella… here I come.

♥HOW I MADE IT.♥

I gathered all my ingredients together.

I used only chicken breast for my attempt. And not because I live in L.A. and I’m trying to be all healthy-shmealthy. But because I really do prefer the taste of white meat over dark meat. Always have.

Then I chopped my parsley. And I have to “brag” that this parsley comes straight from my fledgeling little garden. I am a proud little mama.

I combined all the ingredients, except for the brown sugar, into a bowl and gave it a mix.

And then I used my favorite marinating method. My trusty Ziploc bag. Ziploc has never left me down. Not one spill or leak yet.

Into the fridge the marinating chicken went for a few hours.

After 3 hours (I know, I know… MIL said 4 hours minimum, but it was getting so late!), I took the chicken out and put it in a dish to bake.

♥MIL MISSION #47: ACCOMPLISHED.♥

After about 40 minutes, the chicken was done. Ta-da! So that’s a Chicken Marbella! I served it with some roasted brussel sprouts, because I love roasted brussel sprouts with anything oven-baked and hearty, especially those crispy little leaves that accidentally fall off the sprout. The hubby said, “Mmm… tastes like childhood.” And if that ain’t a compliment, then I don’t know what is.

♥PLATE IT, ATE IT, GRADED IT.♥

scale: 0 (not at all) to 5 (very)

Cupboard to table time: 4 hours (including prep, marinating and baking time)

Difficulty: 2 (because I had to cut through chicken bone!)

Deliciousness: 4 (I think I could do a better job next time)

Impressed Husband factor: 5 (Childhood!)

Leftover-friendly: 3

Original MIL Mission #51: Pork Chili Verde

Yup, that’s right. Chicken Chile Roja. That is no typo, my friends. When I went to the store to purchase my mission ingredients, I blindly purchased crushed tomatoes instead of crushed tomatillos. Only when I was already in the throws of putting together the recipe did I realize that tomatoes did NOT in fact equal tomatillos. I gasped at my mistake and then even drove down to the store again to find tomatillos, fresh or canned. Unfortunately, they had neither. So I decided to do a major wing-it, and pushed onward. So thus, I present… ROJA style! 

♥HOW I MADE IT.♥

Below are my ingredients. I made the chicken version since the hub and I don’t typically eat pork. Note the can of crushed tomatoes hiding in the back, embarrassed that it wasn’t up to the sprightly green-ness of its tomatillo cousin. 

For my chicken, I used skinless, boneless dark meat. Unfortunately, I read the other DIL’s attempt with MIL’s tips for cooking dark meat on bone so I had to make do with what I had. I cut up the chicken meat into 3 inch chunks and roasted in the oven per MIL’s wing-it instructions.

While the chicken roasted, I got to prepping the roja sauce.

Ahhh, how I’ve missed my Cuisinart. And it was just as easy as I remembered. Look at the beautiful green-ness of the onions, garlic, serrano and cilantro.

Now comes the roja part of the equation. I put my chopped ingredients into a pot and added the rest of the liquid ingredients and spices to simmer for a while.

Still beautiful!

Once the sauce had simmered and the chicken was roasted, I placed the chicken into the pot and stuck it into the oven to bake for one hour.

♥MIL MISSION #51: ACCOMPLISHED.♥

Muy sabroso!

There was no need for the tomatoes to be embarrassed. The dish done roja style was simply delicious. It still had that “chile verde” flavor to it, if not a bit deeper, richer. I served it with black beans, sliced avocado and an extra sprinkling of cilantro, just because I love it so! The dish had the right bite of spice, and the flavors blended perfectly together. I was pleased to hear hubby say, “This is goooood” and go back for seconds.

♥PLATE IT, ATE IT, GRADED IT.♥

scale: 0 (not at all) to 5 (very)

Cupboard to table time: 2 hours

Difficulty: 2

Deliciousness: 5

Impressed Husband factor: 5 (he actually gave it a 10, but I had to remind him our top score was a 5!)

Leftover-friendly: 5 (and definitely even better the next day)

Original MIL Mission #48: Incredible Chocolate Chip Cookies

Today was a rainy, Spring day in Los Angeles, and I was being a hermit at home thinking of something productive to do. And what’s more productive than making a batch of homemade chocolate chip cookies? My favorite. I’ve had MIL’s incredible chocolate chip cookies before, and they truly were incredible. I could only hope to do her recipe justice.

♥HOW I MADE IT.♥

My ingredients. And yes, that includes a giant bag of choco chips.

And I’d also like to introduce you to my new kitchen helper: my KitchenAid stand mixer! Now I’ve been eyeing one of these for quite some time. The price finally became right on Amazon.com, so now I’m a proud new parent.

So starting the first half of this recipe. The sugars and the butter.

Then followed by the eggs and vanilla. And cream goes my mixer. Go, go, go!

Next, in went the dry ingredients and last but certainly not least, chopped walnuts and lots of chocolate chips.

I had to chop my walnuts as I only had whole ones in the kitchen. Note this was the only manual labor part of my cookie-making since my mixer was taking care of all the hard work. I must say, this little kitchen helper is just fantastic.

And here’s my cookie dough. Delish enough.

I popped the bowl into the fridge for about 10 minutes, scooped out the dough onto my cookie sheet and into the oven they went.

Twelve minutes later, because I love soft and chewy cookies, I took them out to cool.

I also took the advice of MIL and other DIL, and froze half the batter for another rainy (or not so rainy) day. Because I’m often in the mood for warm, fresh chocolate chip cookies on any day of the week. I rolled into a tube a la the cookie dough you find in the store, and wrapped in wax paper and plastic wrap.

 ♥MIL MISSION #48: ACCOMPLISHED.♥

Cookies cooling and looking oh-so-cool.

 The cookies ended up being perfectly baked: the right bit of crispy on the outside, but ooey-gooey, melty on the inside. Me and the hubby had these the good old fashioned way – with a cold glass of milk.

They were incredible and just what I needed to make this rainy day just a little bit brighter. I hope I made MIL proud!

♥PLATE IT, ATE IT, GRADED IT.♥

scale: 0 (not at all) to 5 (very)

Cupboard to table time: 30 min.

Difficulty: 1 (especially with my mixer)

Deliciousness: 5

Impressed Husband factor: 5+ (He actually gave me a 10, but I told him that wasn’t in our grade range!)

Leftover-friendly: 5

(posted by marites)

Original MIL Mission #46: Chili with Dark Winter Ale.

I’m a big chili fan. Growing up, anything that was topped with a big glop of chili (hot dogs, french fries, nachos, burgers — you name it!) was better off than its original version. As I got older, of course, I learned to appreciate a nice simple bowl of chili on its own. Especially during the cooler months, and more importantly, during Super Bowl season! And I was all for simple, healthy dishes following the insanity of holiday cooking and eating.

♥HOW I MADE IT.♥

Here are the stars of the recipe, with my crock pot as the main attraction.

I had never cooked dried beans… ever. I’ve made chili or bean-based soups and stews in the past, but always with the canned stuff. I was pretty excited to finally make beans from scratch (is that what you’d call it?). Anyways, here they are soaking for a few hours before they start a-cooking.

I began to prep the other ingredients, which included chopping up the serrano pepper.

And then using my Cuisinart to fine dice the onion and garlic, as well as fine ground the beef. But I will say, I am very much a fan of chunky beef chilis also! But I’m sticking to what this recipe says.

And then the best part of slow cooking is that you just put everything into a pot…

Of course, adding the all important dark, winter ale. And I still had some of the holiday brews lying around in my fridge.

And pour that wintry goodness in…

And then set it and forget it!

♥MIL MISSION #46: ACCOMPLISHED.♥

So, I did accomplish the chili… eventually. I think it’s my slow cooker (time for a new one!), but it took 13 HOURS for my chili to finally be ready. I set it for low for about 7 hours, and when I tested it, it wasn’t even close to being ready. So I set it for high for several more hours, testing it as hours passed, until it was ready. So basically we weren’t able to have the chili until the next evening.

But all went well after. I decided to serve alongside a new skillet cornbread recipe I got. It was alll…. riiiight, but I definitely could use a better cornbread recipe. MIL, would you happen to have one? =)

The chili was hearty, a little spicy and definitely much more refined than the chili I used to top my fries with back in the day. I might ease up on the ale the next time I make this as it came out pretty strong this time around.

♥PLATE IT, ATE IT, GRADED IT.♥

scale: 0 (not at all) to 5 (very)

Cupboard to table time: 14.5 hours (includes prep, bean-soaking and dysfunctional slow cooker time)

Difficulty: 1

Deliciousness: 3.5 

Impressed Husband factor: 3 (probably because he tasted when it was not quite ready?)

Leftover-friendly: 5

Original MIL Mission #4: Pecan Tarts

New Year’s is usually about resolutions, which typically starts with promises of eating better and exercising more. Even though I’ve been on a holiday binge, I haven’t quite gotten to the “eating better” and “exercising more” parts yet. During the holidays, I figured I’d play catch-up on some of the MIL’s missions, including the Scottish Shortbread and Pecan Tarts. Don’t pecan tarts just say holiday to you? Long story short — I had planned to make the tarts for my holiday party, and I did. I was feeling pretty proud of them too, when in the middle of running around doing errands the day of my party, I gasped in horror. Did I forget to add the melted butter that I had in the microwave? And alas, my horror was true. I got home, found the butter in my microwave and cut into my cooling pecan tart. Liquidy, syrupy mess oozed out…

Needless to say, I didn’t serve up that tart and chalked up that mistake to being harried and stressed. But I was bothered by my failure so on New Year’s Day, I decided to bake the pecan tart again… with butter included.

Here are my ingredients.

I started off by making my crust. Since I’ve made the crust a few times now, I feel pretty comfortable making it and am most definitely less intimidated by the prospect. Here are the tart shells.

And into the oven with my used rice pie weights.

Next up is the filling. Fun! I decided to give my Cuisinart a rest and used my mixer instead. Totally easy. And THIS time, I did not forget the butter.

Once the pie tarts were set in the oven, I added the pecan halves to the shell…

… 

and poured the syrupy-sweetness into the tart.

I placed my tart shell on a baking sheet and then popped it into the oven for about 30 minutes. I checked at 25 minutes, but the center was still wobbly so I kept it in a bit longer.

And just like that… easy as pie, errr… tart.

Yes, I’m not a total failure! The pecan tart came out great. I made some whipped cream to go along with the tart, and I think the whipped cream is a MUST. It’s super easy to make and keeps in the fridge for a couple of days for your leftovers.

Needless to say, the dessert has kept me and the hubby in the holiday spirit, and I was glad to start off my new year with a new accomplishment, particularly with an originally failed mission.

♥PLATE IT, ATE IT, GRADED IT.♥

scale: 0 (not at all) to 5 (very)

Cupboard to table time: 1 hour, 45 minutes

Difficulty: 3 (mainly because of the crust)

Deliciousness: 4 (I thought my crust should’ve been rolled out thinner)

Impressed Husband factor: 5

Leftover-friendly: 5