Cooking with BS's 2-Year-Anniversary Post!

It's already been 2 years since Katy and I started Cooking with B.S.! Since there's no way we could top last year's anniversary post of Skip's Scramble, so I thought it would be a good idea to host a dinner party and invite a few of our friends over.

For this late-spring dinner I wanted to represent the beginning of summer and meals to come in the summer months. I made Arnold Palmers with mint and bourbon, a fancy beet salad, grilled burgers and angel food cake with fresh strawberries and whipped cream. 

No those aren't black olives. They're purple potatoes from my garden! Lightly sauteed. 

Bourbon Mint Arnold Palmers

There is something so simply delicious about lemonade and iced tea. Like most things it's more delicious if you add bourbon and mint to it. For these Arnold Palmers I steeped two tea bags in a large mason jar. I used one green tea bag and one black tea. Then I added the lemonade I made earlier in the day.
I then added mint leaves to another mason jar (what up Pinterest?) added ice and then muddled the leaves a bit. Added the bourbon, iced tea and then lemonaid. Then served to some thirsty guests.

Brian's Fancy-Ass Beet Salad

This dish is the crown jewel of this cooking blog in my opinion. It features boiled beets with a herb puree coating, whipped yogurt, chevre, beet foam, dill sprigs, spinach leaves, dandelion petals, and did I mention that all the greens were from my garden? It was light and airy and turned a beet salad into something made for summer.

Garlic Chutes and Cheddars Burger comes with garlic shoots

Obviously this is an ode to Bob's Burgers, writers feel free to use this one next season. This burger was made with spices in the middle, cheddar cheese, grilled garlic shoots, and sriracha mayo all served on a sesame seed bun. I'm not gonna give you any of my burger secrets! Go bug Alton Brown.

Angel Food Cake with Fresh Strawberries and Whipped Cream

Honestly the Joy of Cooking has an amazing Angel Food Cake recipe go look it up! Now! Super simple dessert I just plated it sort of fancy-like.

So there you have a Cooking with B.S. Dinner party! I can't believe it's been two years already! All photos taken by Katy Weaver. Oh by the way, this is our last blog post until fall.

Split Pea Soup with Fish & Mint Meringues

If you're a fan of this blog then you know that unusual combinations are sort of a running theme and this post is no different. The idea for fish meringues sprouted in my mind after a trip to the local Asian grocery store. It seemed too weird to be terrible. The fish meringues are like little pillows swimming atop a sea of green. The two work together to create a surprising perfect early spring dish. 

I don't have anything funny to say about this post. But I do have a warning: if you decide to eat more than two servings of this split pea soup in one day, prepare for some green poops. Just accept it and own it. Maybe you can eat a bunch of this soup on March 16th then everything about you can be festive for St. Patricks day!

Split Pea Soup

• 1 lbs. (16 oz) Split Peas
• Chicken or Vegetable Stock
• 1/2 large Onion diced 
• 1 tablespoon Olive Oil
• 2 cloves Garlic minced
• 1/2 cup Milk
• 1/2 cup Water
• 1 teaspoon Coriander
•  Salt & Pepper to taste
• Spinach

1. Saute the onion and garlic in the olive oil in a medium to large sauce pan over medium high heat. Add the coriander, salt and pepper. Continue sauteing until the onions are golden brown. 
2. Add the peas. Saute the peas with the onions for a few minutes. 
3. Add the stock, milk and water. Increase the heat to high and bring to a boil. Stir occasionally.
4. Reduce the heat to a simmer. Simmer for 20-30 minutes. Stir occasionally.
5. Add half of the spinach to a food processor. Pour the soup into the food processor. Add the rest of the spinach and blend together for a minute.  
6. Serve in a bowl with the meringues and extra virgin olive oil.

Fish & Mint Meringues

• 3 Egg Whites
• 1 teaspoon Sugar
• 1/4 teaspoon Cream of Tartar
• 1/4 teaspoon Fish Sauce
• 1 teaspoon Mint Leaves minced
• 1/4 teaspoon Cayenne Pepper

1. Preheat the oven to 325°
2. In a large mixing bowl whisk the egg whites with an electric mixer on medium speed until they get really foamy and bubbly, I'm sure there's some French term for this.
3. Add the sugar and cream of tartar. Continue beating the egg whites until stiff peaks form. Whisk in the fish sauce, mint, and cayenne. 
4. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Scoop out the meringue with a teaspoon and make dollops of meringue on the sheet. They don't have to be fancy, they're going to be crumbled up anyway.
5. Bake at 325° for 12 minutes. After the 12 minutes, turn the oven off and leave the meringues in the oven for another 10 minutes.  Take the meringues out of the oven and let them cool until the outer shell is hard. 
6. Once the meringues are cooled crumble them up and serve on top of the split pea soup.

All these peautiful picture taken by Katy Weaver

Miso Crusted Pork Chops

Fun fact of the day: encrusting anything in miso makes it taste 100 times better. There's no question that adding it to a pork chop would make it that much more delicious. Not to mention the fact that it makes a perfect centerpiece for a dinner dish. Served amongst baked eggplant and asparagus with apple ginger chutney it makes any dinner the best dinner of your life.

There's something funny about posting to this blog every week. It's easy to get caught up in it and just accept it and not take account for anything else. For example I now expect everything I eat to be as delicious as all the food I make. I also expect it to look as beautiful as Katy's photos make it look. Naturally that's sort of an unrealistic expectation. But why should it be?

It's a new year and that means new starts. Sure boxed mac and cheese is fine when you're tired and don't feel like cooking, but there's no substitute for a perfectly cooked pork chop when you're in the mood for it. In my personal opinion there's been too much accepting the status quo in this country. What happened to the greatest country on Earth? I personally blame congress and the banking industry. But to get back on track, this is not a year to go with the flow. This is a year of getting better. Doing this blog every week reminds me that settling for anything less than the best isn't an option.

Baked Eggplant and Asparagus

• 1 Eggplant chopped
• 1/2 pound Asparagus julienned
• 1 tablespoon Olive Oil
• 1 tablespoon Sesame Seeds
• 2 teaspoons Garlic Salt

1. Preheat your oven to 375°
2. In a large mixing bowl toss the Eggplant, Asparagus, Olive Oil, Sesame Seeds and Garlic Salt together.
3. Fill a small casserole pan with the vegetables and bake for 15 minutes. Stir halfway through baking.

Apple Ginger Chutney

• 1 Fuji Apple diced
• 1 tablespoon Ginger freshly grated 
• 3 tablespoons Apple Cider Vinegar
• 1 tablespoon Balsamic Vinegar
• 1 Yellow Onion diced
• 1 tablespoon Brown Sugar

1. Heat the Apple Cider Vinegar, Balsamic, Onion and Apple over high. Boil out most of the moisture. 
2. Add the Ginger and Brown Sugar. Stir and cover. Heat over medium-low heat for 10 more minutes, stirring occasionally.
3. Blend if a smoother chutney is desired. 

Miso Crusted Pork Chops

• 3 Pork Chops
• 2 packs of Yellow Miso Soup Mix
• Olive Oil

1. Heat just enough Olive Oil in a skillet to cover the pan over medium heat.
2. Pour the packets of Miso Soup into a shallow dish. Place the Pork Chops in the dish, cover both sides of each chop with the miso. Message the mix into the meat.
3. Place each pork chop in the skillet. Evenly cook on both sides. Don't worry the miso will turn out a little black. Place the skillet in the oven to finish cooking if needed.
4. Serve with Apple Ginger Chutney, and Baked Eggplant and Asparagus. 

Go ahead and change things up for your meal tonight. Put a twist on an old favorite and make it something worth talking about instead of just filling the hole that is dinner.

Photos by the great and talented Katy Weaver

Beef Stroganoff with Gorgonzola Gnocchis

Before we get into this post I just want to mention that we have a holiday ecookbook on Google Play! Which can be downloaded by clicking here, here or here. Or you can click on that ad to the right. It's a good way to support your favorite food bloggers!

This is our first post in a series entitled: Foods with Weird Names.  Sure Beef Stroganoff seems like an outdated dish, but adding the Gorgonzola Gnocchis turns this into a new modern classic. This is a perfect example of taking something from the past and making it fit today's tastes. It's not as hard as people make it out to be. 

Side note: I want to lick that steak. 

Beef Stroganoff

• 1 lb. Top Sirloin Steak sliced into strips about 1/4" thick.
• 6 Mushrooms baby cremini--sliced 
• 1/2 medium Red Onion minced 
• 2 tablespoons Butter
• 1 clove Garlic minced 
• 1/4 cup Wine (Pinot Noir) 
• 3/4 cup Sour Cream
• 1 tablespoon Crushed Mustard Seeds
• Salt and Pepper to taste
• Chives finely chopped

1. Melt the butter in a large skillet. Add the garlic and onions. Caramelize until caramel in color. 
2. Add the sliced mushrooms. Season with salt and pepper, sauté for about 3-5 minutes.  
3. Introduce the steak into the mix at this point. Sauté only until the steak turns slightly brown.
4. Stir in the wine and sour cream. Bring to a boil then reduce to a low simmer. Stirring occasionally let the sauce thicken up before serving. 

Gorgonzola Gnocchis

• 2 Potatoes boiled and mashed
• 1 tablespoon Butter
• 1 cup Flour (plus extra if needed) 
• 2 Eggs
• 4 oz. Gorgonzola crumbled

1. In a large bowl mix the mashed potatoes in with the butter and 1/4 cup of the flour.
2. Mix in the eggs and the rest of flour.
3. Sprinkle the gorgonzola into the mixture. Fold the cheese into the batter. Add more flour as needed. It should be the consistency of slightly tacky bread dough.
4. Transfer the dough into a ziplock bag. 
5. Heat several cups of cold water to a boil in a saucepan over high heat. 
6. Cut the tip off the ziplock bag, that's right - just the tip. Squeeze over the boiling pan while cutting the dough into tootsie roll sized pieces. 
7. Boil until each gnocchi floats in the pan.
8. Drain the water and serve with Beef Stroganoff on top. Garnish with chives. 

Photos as always by Katy Weaver (you probably know that by now)

Chicken and Dumplings

"Winter is coming." Well screw you Ned Stark. I say winter doesn't need to be a cold barren wasteland of ice, snow and family gatherings. It can be so much better and warmer with Chicken and Dumplings, which is basically like a hug in a bowl. Just remember even if there's no one to keep you warm this winter at least there's this soup to keep you warm, and hell you can even bring it to your office's Holiday party! But don't let Tim hog all the dumplings.

I had never made Chicken and Dumplings until someone on the Cooking with B.S. Facebook page suggested I make it. I'm glad I did, because this is one delicious dish and perfect for any winter day. So I before I made this dish I did a little research on the dish. It turns out that this dish originated from the Chinese province of Hunan when a village came together one freezing winter day, each farmer giving up a piece of that year's crop to the soup that would feed the village and give the soldiers stationed at the village to fight off the invading Mongols. 

Well it turns out I was on the Sweet and Sour Chicken Wikipedia page and this dish actually originates from, I dunno the South? Maybe some place in Europe? If you really want to know, you're at a computer look it up yourself! I have a recipe to write! 

Big news coming from Grub NorthWest and their line of salts. We'll keep you posted!

Chicken and Dumplings

• 3 Chicken Breasts
• 1 cup Flour
• 1/2 cup Buttermilk
• 1 Egg beaten
• 1/2 teaspoon Paprika
• 1/4 teaspoon Cayenne Pepper
• Salt & Pepper
• 3 tablespoons Olive Oil
• 1 Leek sliced
• 1 Carrot stick sliced
• 3 stalks Celery chopped 
• 1/2 medium Onion diced
• 4 Chanterelle Mushrooms chopped
• 52 oz. Chicken Stock
• 3 Bay Leaves
• 1 teaspoon Italian Seasoning
• 1/4 teaspoon Cumin
• 1 cup water

Dumplings

• 1 cup Buttermilk
• 1/2 cup Butter
• 1 teaspoon Salt
• 1 1/2 cup Flour
• 1 teaspoon Baking Powder

1. Get out your Dutch oven, and no I don't mean that dutch oven. Heat 2 tablespoons of olive oil in the Dutch oven over medium heat. 
2. In two separate pie pans, create a buttermilk and egg bath, and a flour mixture of well flour, paprika, cayenne, salt and pepper. 
3. Coat the chicken in the buttermilk bath then coat it in the flour and place in the dutch oven. Evenly cook all three breasts until the middle of each is fully cooked. Should take 10-15 minutes. 
4. Remove the chicken from the pan. DO NOT GET RID OF THE DRIPPIN's! 
5. Let the chicken cool enough to handle.
6. Add the onions, carrots, mushrooms, celery and leek to the pan. Sautee for a good 7 minutes. 
7. Then add the chicken stock, bay leaves, and other seasonings to the pot. Tear apart the chicken breast into small pieces, and dump into the pot. Continue cooking while you prepare the dumplings.
8. Sift together the flour, baking powder and salt into a large mixing bowl. 
9. Melt the butter in a microwaveable safe bowl. Let the bowl cool down a skoch. Stir the buttermilk into the butter, which will solidify the butter. 
10. Pour the buttermilk mixture into the flour mixture to create a dumpling mixture. Let's take a moment to thank this week's sponsor's mixtures.
11. Using two soup spoons make little dolops of dumpling mixtures, and drop them right into the soup! Be sure to spread them out in the pot as to avoid clumping. Make as many dumplings as possible with the dumpling mixture. 
12. Bring to a boil. Reduce to a simmer and cover with the lid until you're ready to serve it up! Enjoy!

So, go start a fire and curl up with some chicken and dumplings this winter and you'll fight off the cold at least for awhile.

All phantastic photos by Katy Weaver. Give her a Like would ya!