Make Mine a 4-Way, Please!

Oh. Hi. O...I know I haven't done a legitimate cooking entry in over a month now, but here I am with a discovery that I have been wanting to share for awhile! Back in August my friend Ryann from A Working Mommy's Blog, and a Cincinnati girl, asked our collective mommy's board if we thought this was weird:

Chili served over spaghetti with shredded cheese & onions.

As a New England girl, I had never heard of such a thing, nor have I ever travelled to Ohio. My first thought was about Texas-style chili over spaghetti, which sounded interesting. She claimed (her claims have now proven to be beyond reproach, hehehe) that she got it that way at a restaurant called Skyline. Our friend Terri, also a Cincy girl at heart, backed her story up. The whole idea intrigued me, but I had never heard of it being served that way. So I went to do some reading.

Not only do people, indeed, eat their chili over spaghetti in Cincinnati but there are lots of restaurants (or chili parlors) that cator to this very demographic! In reading the Wikipedia article found here, I discovered that the chili in question was not at all like Texas style chili. Same basic idea but with more eastern European and middle eastern influences with the use of cinnamon, cloves, and chocolate! The culinary adventurer inside of me was starting to get really piqued.

I also read some about Skyline which appears to have more than just a cult following among Cincinnati natives and extends to those who've relocated all across the country. People have cans of it shipped to where they are. Apparently the chili is traditionally served as a 2-way (chili over spaghetti noodles), 3-way (chili, noodles & completely covered with shredded sharp cheddar cheese), 4-way (chili, noodles, cheese, fresh chopped onions) or a 5-way (chili, noodles, cheese, onions, and kidney beans).

I looked up recipes for Cincinnati chili, and lo and behold, there was one at allrecipes, under my nose the whole time! In reading the reviews of the recipe over and over were the words "very similar to Skyline." So follows the recipe that would change my culinary presuppositions forever, or at least taste really, really good.

Cincinnati Chili from AllRecipes.com (with a few slight modifications by me).

INGREDIENTS

1 tablespoon vegetable oil
1/2 cup chopped onion
2 pounds ground beef
1/4 cup chili powder
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1/4 teaspoon ground allspice
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
1 bay leaf
1/2 (1 ounce) square unsweetened chocolate
2 (10.5 ounce) cans beef broth
1 (15 ounce) can tomato sauce
2 tablespoons cider vinegar
1/4 teaspoon ground cayenne pepper
1/4 cup shredded Cheddar cheese

Directions:

Heat oil in a large saucepan over medium heat. Add onion and cook, stirring frequently, until tender, about 6 minutes.

Add beef, in batches if necessary, and cook, breaking up with a wooden spoon, until browned. Now here is where I altered the recipe just slightly. In reading the reviews on allrecipes, many people stated that the "authentic" way to make this was to boil the ground beef in the broth. So that is what I did, I added the broth to the sauteed onions, brought it to a boil and cooked the ground beef in it. I get a finer consistency from the ground beef this way.

Add chili powder, cinnamon, cumin, allspice, cloves, bay leaf, chocolate, beef broth (see above), tomato sauce, cider vinegar, and red pepper.

Stir to mix well. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat to low; cover and simmer 1 1/2 hours, stirring occasionally.
It is the best if you now refrigerate overnight. I did not let it sit over night, and it was still DELICIOUS!

Remove the bay leaf. Reheat gently over medium heat. Serve over hot, drained spaghetti. Top with shredded cheddar cheese. End recipe.

The chili is supposed to be a thinner consistency and mine turned out pretty thick, but it is because I should have added another cup or so of beef broth after the meat was cooked. That being said, both DH and I loved it with a thicker consistency and he even said he likes this better than traditional spaghetti sauce.

It was very good, and this recipe makes more than enough to freeze for future meals. We ate ours as a 4-way, DH is not big on beans, and it was just so delicious. The picture at the top of the entry shows a scant amount of cheese compared to how it is served in restaurants, but I was trying to be good. Hopefully I will get to visit Ohio one day and stop by for some authentic Skyline chili! And a big thank-you to Ryann and my Cincy girls for introducing me to it.

-Diana, The Ivy Kitchen

Scrumptious Strawberry Season Vol. 2 - Strawberry Banana Shortcake

Finally! Here is the long awaited (or long forgotten about) 2nd half of my Scrumptious Strawberry Season entry! What is strawberry season without strawberry shortcake? Try explaining that to Dear Husband while he is grumbling and complaining about the can of Reddi-Whip he had to make a special trip to the store to get ("I thought picking your own strawberries was supposed to be a way of saving money!" No silly, picking your own strawberries is a way to ENJOY the season and an excuse cook and eat yummy food, DUH!!!).

Thus follows the recipe I used to make this year's favorite beginning-of-summer dessert...with an unexpected twist!

I used this recipe from allrecipes.com, but I basically only used the shortcake part of the recipe, not the berry part or the cream.

http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Strawberry-Shortcake/Detail.aspx

2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
4 teaspoons baking powder
2 tablespoons white sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/3 cup shortening
1 egg

Preheat oven to 425 degrees F (220 degrees C). Grease and flour one small cake pan or small rectangular casserole dish. I prefer my strawberry shortcakes to be rectangular, they are easier to work with, I think.

In a medium bowl combine the flour, baking powder, 2 tablespoons white sugar and the salt. With a pastry blender cut in the shortening until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs. I washed my pastry blender to have it ready right away, as I use it to crush my berries instead of slicing them!

Make a well in the center and add the beaten egg and milk. Stir until just combined.

Spread the batter into the prepared pan. Bake at 425 degrees F (220 degrees C) for 15 to 20 minutes or until golden brown. Let cool partially in pan on wire rack.

While the cake is cooking, I prepare the RIPE berries by crushing them with the pastry blender.
While crushing the strawberries, I glanced over and saw two lonely bananas that would shortly be taking "The Long Walk" to MIL's compost pile. Maybe you can, but I can't leave a dying man....er...fruit behind, so I grabbed them and sliced them up and added them to the crushed strawberries. I added a little lemon juice (about a TBSP) to keep the bananas a nice color, and added 1/2 cup of white sugar. Mixed it well and set it aside.

Need I say more? I think not. But I will :P In hindsight, I would have used a little more sugar. The berry filling was a little on the tart side, probably due to the addition of lemon juice. I like mine more tart, but I would probably add 2/3 cup of sugar next time to suit a more universal palette. But all in all, the bananas were a delicious twist!

Anyway, once the shortcake is cool enough to touch, cut it into squares of a desired size, and cut each square in half. Pour some berry mixture over the bottom half of the shortcake, followed by a good size squirt of Reddi-Whip, then layer on the top of the short cake, some more berries, and a final squirt of the sugary, aerosol goodness that is Redd-Whip. And there you have the finished product: Strawberry Banana Shortcake!

The Little Princess is going through a picky stage right now with food, basically if it's not cereal, peanut butter, Goldfish or a hot dog, she ain't eatin' it. I was somewhat reassured when I put this down on her tray and got the repeated reaction of "Oh WOW! Oh WOW!" :)

Thanks for reading!

-Diana, The Ivy Kitchen

Recipe: Hearty Healthy Heroes - Italian Food

Heroes, subs, Italians, grinders, hoagies, sammies: if I had learned one thing during my 4 years working as a Subway "sandwich artist" it was that there were many, many names that people called sandwiches, and it mainly depended on what region of the country they came from.

When people would come in and order a "roast beef grinder" it would be relatively easy to figure out what they wanted me to make, and relatively easy to figure out that they probably weren't from Maine.

It was the term "Italian" that gave us trouble at a little Subway restaurant here in Maine. Here we call them ALL Italians (pronounced "eye-talian"). Go into a local, non-franchised, sandwich shop and order a "hoagie" or "sub" and you are bound to get a puzzled look, and don't count on them having lettuce to put in there. The term "Italian" extends to all sandwiches, no matter what the filling, prepared on any form of elongated bun. However, if a Mainer orders an "Italian" with no other specifics given he/she wants Ham, American cheese, onions, tomatoes, pickles, green peppers, black olives, oil, vinegar and salt & pepper on a bun, wrapped in wax paper with a rubber band around it. No shredded lettuce involved.

That's all fine when you live and work in Maine and everyone knows what everyone else is talking about. The problem comes in when you work at a place like Subway that is a chain, and is world-wide. You see, Subway has two sandwiches The Italian BMT and the Spicy Italian, neither of which are the type of sandwich mentioned above. The BMT has ham, bologna, pepperoni, and Genoa salami (the whole "what does the BMT stand for?" is another post entirely) and the Spicy Italian is a concentrated amount of pepperoni and Genoa salami. These sandwiches are probably more appropriately called "Italians." So you want to confuse a Mainer, tell him to walk into a Subway and order an "Italian."

From the Sandwich Artists' point of view, the trick is to observe age and listen for accent. If the person ordering the "Italian" (pronounced Ah-talian) is below the age of 25 and has a southern, Canadian, or non-regional diction they most likely want something directly off the Subway menu and will want to pick and choose their own veggies, including lettuce. If the person is older than 25 and orders an "eye-talian" then the only question you need to ask is "turkey or ham?" This person does not want any more involvement and the making of the "Italian" until it is time to pay at the cash register.

All of this was to say that I made big yummy sandwich for dinner last Wednesday night, and I am calling it a "hero" for my readers' sake even though in my native tongue we would call it a big "eye-talian."

The idea of making a large "community" sandwich for dinner, may seem like a novel one, but it really is economical, and if you are not making your own bread, time saving. And we all know from Subway's formerly fat spokesperson who shall remain nameless that meat & veggie subs are good for you and melt all your fat away almost instantly. Please note sarcasm.

I started with a fresh batch of homemade Honey Wheat Bread...a recipe that I found a long time ago on allrecipes.com . Simply assemble all ingredients given below in the order they are listed into the pan of your bread machine and set it on the dough cycle.

This is, by far, my favorite bread recipe:

1 1/4 cups warm milk
1 egg, beaten
2 tablespoons butter, softened
1/4 cup honey
3/4 teaspoon salt
2 3/4 cups bread flour
1 cup whole wheat flour
1 package of active dry yeast
2 tablespoons butter, melted

The only thing to keep in mind is that this makes way too much dough to actually bake in your bread machine and you will have to lift the cover about 30 mins. before the dough cycle is done to give it room to rise.

Next, turn out the dough onto a floured surface, divide as needed and shape into loaves. For my purposes I divided the dough in half and made one large baguette and one traditional pan loaf for use as sliced bread in later meals:

Allow bread to double in size (45 mins. to 1 hour) and bake in a preheated oven for 35-40 mins:

Allow bread to cool on a wire rack.

A good sandwich spread can make or break a sandwich...it can be the deciding factor between bland and bold. Regular mayo and mustard are fine, but I prefer a more gourmet sandwich spread. I have come up with a few yummy ones, most notably roasted red pepper mayo and sweet garlic mayo. I decided to go with the sweet garlic mayo for this sandwich. Here is how you make it:

You will need 1/4 cup of mayo or salad dressing (I prefer to use the salad dressing - Miracle Whip - type for sandwiches because it is already seasoned), 1/4 cup of Newman's Own Light Honey mustard dressing (the BEST honey mustard dressing on the market) and one small CLOVE of fresh crushed garlic. Yes, I know I put a BULB in the picture, but it was prettier!

I Mix the 1/4 cup of mayo with the 1/4 cup of honey mustard, then crush the fresh garlic directly into the bowl using my Pampered Chef Garlic Press (easily on of my top five favorite Pampered Chef products):

Stir very well with a fork, cover and keep in the fridge until it is time to make the sandwich.

Old habits die hard, and though Subway restaurants have moved on to the "Hinge Cut" I still maintain that their original method of the "U-Gouge" is the best way to cut bread for making a sandwich. It is hard to describe in words how to do a "U-Gouge" but you are basically cutting a wedge out of the top of the bread to form a walled gully in the bottom for holding sandwich ingredients:

Now for the fun part, filling the sandwich with whatever you like (or in my case, whatever I happened to have on hand):

I did sweet garlic mayo, Monterrey jack cheese, Swiss cheese (I put the spread on top of the cheese in these photos because the bread was still PIPING HOT when I made the sandwich, and I prefer the cheese to be a little melted and the mayo not be quite as warm), sliced turkey breast, onions, tomatoes and sea salt and black pepper. I served pickle slices on the side because Dear Husband does not like them on his sandwiches, and wouldn't you know, when we sat down to eat he put pickle slices in his part of the sandwich. :

I serve heroes on a cutting board so that each person can cut off the amount that they like:

Cut off a hunk of hero (or "eye-talian") and enjoy!

-Diana, The Ivy Kitchen

Recipe: Spicy Garlic Lime Chicken

Recipes are a regular thing I would like to feature on my blog, and today's entry is one I have never made before. Spicy Garlic Lime Chicken is a recipe that I got from my most trusted recipe website http://www.allrecipes.com/ . I try a lot of recipes from that site and as long as I stick to the 4-5 star recipes, I really cannot go wrong!

Anyway...I am in love with savory citrus dishes recently (my SIL made me a special lemon-garlic-pasta dish for my recent birthday meal and it was yummy), so this recipe looked like something I would really enjoy, and that I was confident Dear Husband would dare to try it as well. In addition to that, when I was at my Pampered Chef party earlier in the week I was reminded of a kitchen tool that I have that I haven't tried yet. Pampered Chef makes a citrus press that is sort of similar to a garlic press. You'll see a demo of how it works later in this post.

So here is the recipe (found at http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Spicy-Garlic-Lime-Chicken/Detail.aspx?prop31=2 ). My notes on the recipe are in red.

INGREDIENTS
3/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper *I THOUGHT I had cayenne pepper from a previous shopping trip, but couldn't locate it anywhere in my spice drawer, so I reluctantly substituted chili powder. I must've imagine or dreamed about buying cayenne pepper, hahaha.
1/8 teaspoon paprika
1/4 teaspoon garlic powder
1/8 teaspoon onion powder
1/4 teaspoon dried thyme
1/4 teaspoon dried parsley
4 boneless, skinless chicken breast halves (I used three large ones and the seasoning was exactly the right amount)

2 tablespoons butter
1 tablespoon olive oil
2 teaspoons garlic powder
3 tablespoons lime juice

Combine the salt, black pepper, chili powder*, 1/4 tsp. garlic powder, onion powder, dried thyme, and dried parsley in a small bowl:

This is the point where I started preparing the side dishes. I chose Zatarain's yellow rice (let me tell you, Zatarain's is a life savor in the kitchen because it is one of the few instant side dishes you can buy that actually tastes like FOOD! I have liked everything I have tried by Zatarain's).

For a SUPER simple veggie side, I sliced up some summer squash and roasted it for about 1/2 hour in a 350 degree F oven:


After I assembled all the spices that the Spicy Garlic Lime Chicken recipe called for, I juiced 2 limes using my Pampered Chef Citrus Press. The citrus press is a cross between one of those old fashioned glass juicers and a new-fangled garlic press. It is a tiny little thing made out of all metal, and you kind wonder how it can possibly squeeze a piece of fruit. You just have to go for it and see what happens.

Cut the limes in half and place a half, flat side down (which seems counter-intuitive), and squeeze it just like a garlic press.

The citrus press is such an efficient use of force, that not only does it squeeze every bit of juice out of the lime, it is a VERY easy and fluid motion! You can get all the juice out of a lime in seconds, it is amazing! It inverts the lime rind and you just take it out and replace it with another. With the Pampered Chef Citrus Press you could squeeze enough fresh limes or lemons for lime-ade or lemon-ade in a matter of minutes. In fact, I can't wait to buy some more limes and make lime-ade!
Anyway...now back to the chicken! In a large skillet, heat 2 tbsp. butter and 1 tbsp. olive oil. Rub all the spices into the chicken breast, coating the top and bottoms, and place int eh hot oil:

Brown both sides on the chicken breasts (approximately 6 minutes on each side - I used my lidded skillet on low-med. heat for about 10 mins- removing the lid to flip over the chicken at the 5 minute mark).

When the chicken is browned on both sides (see above), sprinkle the 2 tsp. of garlic powder into the skillet, and add 3 tbsp. of fresh squeezed lime juice. Turn the heat up to high and cook chicken for 5 minutes more. Keep flipping it around in the pan to coat with the seasonings. Here is what it looks like when it is done (it came out looking so yummy):

Here it is plated up with the yellow rice, roasted summer squash, and limes for garnish.

What a delicious Sunday dinner this turned out to be! I finished cooking mid-afternoon just after The Little Princess went down for a nap. DH and I poured some Cokes and went outside and ate by the river. The recipe got two big thumbs up from DH...which means I will definitely be making it again. The fact that the recipe uses mostly dried seasonings makes it a very time/money saving meal, and it was sooo tasty, to boot. The only change I will make next time is to make sure that I have the cayenne pepper on hand (and not just hallucinate about it), because the spicy element was kinda lacking.

Thanks for sharing our meal!

-Diana, The Ivy Kitchen