A couple more Disney/Pixar recipes...

A couple more recipes people were willing to share...

Jen's Crab Ragoons 

Mix crab meat, (softened) cream cheese, soy sauce, scallions, and a little sugar in a bowl.  Put about about 2 tsp of the mixture in the center of a wanton wrapper and lightly wet the edge with water before folding the mixture into a triangle.  Then just heat vegetable oil in a wok and cook until done on one side before flipping with tongs and allowing to cook on the other side- Remove from heat (preferably) on paper towels and allow to cool  a minute or two.

Royden's Stuffed Mushrooms (adapted from All recipe's Mouth Watering Stuffed Mushrooms)

Ingredients:

12 whole fresh mushrooms

1 tablespoon vegetable oil

1 tablespoon pressed garlic

1 (8 ounce) package reduced fat cream cheese, softened 

1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese

1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper

3/4 teaspoon ground cayenne pepper  [[yup, that's triple the amount of the original recipe, and if you use less than this a little part of Royden dies on the inside]]

DIRECTIONS:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Spray a baking sheet with cooking spray. Clean mushrooms with a damp paper towel and carefully break off stems. Chop stems extremely fine, discarding tough end of stems.

2. Heat oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Add garlic and chopped mushroom stems to the skillet. Fry until any moisture has disappeared, taking care not to burn garlic. Set aside to cool.

3.    Royden didn't actually do this step, but next time he is going to try to pre-bake the mushroom caps before filling them, as the mushrooms gave off a lot of liquid.

4. When garlic and mushroom mixture is no longer hot, stir in cream cheese, Parmesan cheese, black pepper, and the crazy amount of cayenne pepper. Mixture should be very thick. Fill each mushroom cap with a "generous" amount of stuffing.  (Royden's tip -- the stuffing expands, so you actually want to give it a bit of room to grow) Arrange the mushroom caps on prepared cookie sheet.

4. Bake for 20 minutes in the preheated oven, or until the mushrooms are piping hot and liquid starts to form under caps.

Emily's Pumpkin Dip  (Adapted from All recipe's Pumpkin Fluff Dip)

Ingredients:

1 (8 ounce) container frozen whipped topping, thawed  [[half the original recipe, but stilly happily quite fluffy, thank you very much]]

1 (5 ounce) package instant vanilla pudding mix

1 (15 ounce) can solid pack pumpkin

1 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice

DIRECTIONS:

Step 1.  In a large bowl, mix together instant vanilla pudding mix, pumpkin and pumpkin pie spice;  fold in the thawed frozen whipped topping. Chill in the refrigerator until serving.  

Step 2.  Have M3 build you a pumpkin coach.    This step is not optional.  

Disney/Pixar Potluck fun

 After a long hiatus, the potluck dinners are back!

Jen's Crab Ragoons

Liz's Cheese Monsters, with a  Mickey pepper shake in the background

M3 and Emily's Cinderella Pumpkin dip, complete with Pumpkin coach

Jeremy's Lady in the Lake drink 

A Winne the Pooh dessert by Brooks (photo credit to Linz)

And sadly this is the best picture I got all of the entire food spread.  If you squint, you can almost see the hummus that Moira made, or Linz's leftover, err, I mean Disney Princess Cake.  I also failed to get pictures of the gumbo or meatballs or soup.   But rather than take responsibility for my lousy photography skills, I am going to blame Shanel.  All I did was follow the instructions on the bottle...

But who am I kidding, that helped make Disney Scene it a hell of a lot more fun.  Congratulations to "Russ" for winning the prize of the night!  

Highlight of the game:  Jen screaming BEDKNOBSANDBROOMSTICKS SUCK IT SUCK IT  so fast that some people completely missed she shouted out the right answer.

Team 3, looking quite intense

And lucky for me, there are no videos of me singing my heart out to Disney songs.  Pretty sure I could have given Big Momma a run for her money.  

And since a couple of you asked, I'm including the Ratatouille recipe.   (Adapted from The New York Times)

Ingredients for the piperade:

1/2 red pepper

1/2 yellow pepper

1/2 orange pepper

2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

1 teaspoon minced garlic

1/2 cup finely diced yellow onion

3 tomatoes (about 12 ounces total weight - so you could be like me and just use one rather large one), peeled, seeded, and finely diced, juices reserved

1 sprig thyme

1 sprig flat-leaf parsley

1/2 a bay leaf

 Step 1:  I put the peppers into my toaster oven at 450 degrees for about 15 minutes -- the peppers skin began to loosen, and after they cooled I peeled them and then finely chopped them into tiny bits.

Step 2:
 Combine oil, garlic, and onion in medium skillet over low heat until very soft but not browned, about 8 minutes. Add tomatoes, their juices, thyme, parsley, and bay leaf. Simmer over low heat until very soft and very little liquid remains, but do not brown  (Note, here the website said this would take 10 minutes, but I must have had an extra juicy tomato, because it took me quite a bit longer.  Either that or my low heat was a tad too low). Add peppers and simmer to soften them (mine though were already pretty soft from the roasting). Season to taste with salt, and discard herbs. Reserve tablespoon of mixture and spread remainder in bottom of an 8-inch skillet. 

Now we skip over to the Veggie step.

Veggie Ingredients:
1 zucchini (4 to 5 ounces) sliced in 1/16-inch rounds
1 Japanese eggplant, (4 to 5 ounces) sliced into 1/16-inch rounds 
1 yellow squash (4 to 5 ounces) sliced into 1/16-inch rounds 
4 Roma tomatoes, sliced into 1/16-inch rounds 
1/2 teaspoon minced garlic 
2 teaspoons olive oil 
1/8teaspoon thyme leaves 
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper

Slicing all those things sounds like a major pain, but its not if you have a mandolin!

  
And in case you were wondering, we got ours on sale from HSN of all places.  Came recommended by Bon Appetite, and it cut all those slices with no problems at all.  

ANYWAY, the next step is to to arrange the slices in an alternating pattern around the pan.  Leave about 1/4 inch of each piece exposed.  Then mix the garlic, oil and tyme to drizzle on top of all of the veggies.  Cover with foil and then bake for 2 hours at 275 degrees.  Then uncover and bake for another 30 minutes (don't brown, so if it starts browning, put the foil LOOSELY on this time).  Then, if there is liquid left put it on the stove to cut that off.

At this point, you could save the dish for 2 days in the fridge...  or you could put on the oven to broil so you can brown the dish and then add the vinaigrette and actually eat it. 

Ingredients:

1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oi

1 teaspoon balsamic vinegar

Assorted fresh herbs (thyme flowers, chervil, thyme)

Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper.

For vinaigrette, combine reserved piperade, oil, vinegar, herbs (I used more thyme), and salt and pepper to taste in a bowl. Drizzle on top and you are ready to go!!

French Food Night

With even more people and thankfully lots more space, French Food Night at Erin's was another smashing success.  Despite Greg breaking a chair and a poisoning attempt on poor Bobby, everyone had a good time.

Once again, it's been some time since we actually met, so my memory is once again a bit fuzzy, so if I screw anything up this time I'm going to blame it on finals using up all of my brain power.

Starting with the host, Erin made Seafood Cakes with Lemon Creme Fraiche.  Because of how popular these cakes were, I'll be posting the recipe soon.

Moving through the rest of the food in the order I took pictures of them, Jeremy made French Onion Soup.  While a little tricky to serve, the soup was very cheesey.

 
Christine made a Tartiflette, which in addition to being a specialty in the Alps region is sometimes used by Erin to punish Bobby.

Look at all that bacony goodness!

The next two dishes I can't remember very well, but I remember everything tasting great (and yes, I tried everything minus the vegetarian quiche).  In the blue dish I know is some type of Chicken made by ???  (someone take credit!) and then some type of Green beans also made by someone who needs to take credit.

Another main dish was made by Jamie.  This was the Coq au Vin. 

Note, I'm a crappy photographer.  My first attempt at photographing this dish made it look like curry.  It's almost impressive, given how unlike curry this dish actually is.  So if I haven't done any body's dish justice, I promise it wasn't personal.  Well, unless you happen to be a half Filipno trying to move in on my turf.

I'm not quite sure what the title of the next dish is, but I think it was made by Megan, who tomorrow (May 4th!) will be hosting our third meeting.

I made a Chocolate Mousse, and despite "accidentally" adding way too much Jack, it still tasted great.

My big mistake was in not making enough -- Jamie had to resort to licking the lid.  I'm sure Dave would have made a sexual joke about the whole thing, but luckily?  unluckily?  he didn't have a voice.

Then there was Greg's Needs More Goat Cheese Fingerling Potatoes.  Greg's name for the potatoes, not mine.

Here in the table set up, you can also see one of Dani's quiches.  As I explained before, I love meat, so I made the executive decision to conserve precious stomach space and was only able to try one.

Also, at the end in the pot is Angie's salad.  Once again, remember what I said about my photography skills.  The salad was very good, though *someone* started eating all of the cucumbers and tomatoes out of it.

Southern Food: Jambalya and Slushy Whiskey Sours

Congratulations to the East Falls Church Boys for making two of the popular dishes of the Southern Food Night.  Dave's Jambalaya was completely packed full of flavor, and Mark's whiskey sours definately got the party going.  So due to popular demand, here are the two recipes for you to make yourself:

Dave's Jambalya has been adapted from Emeril Lagasse's Cajun Jambalaya.  Don't let the long list of ingredients scare you -- Dave was able to make this recipe after work AND get to my place on time.  I haven't tried it myself, but I was told it was surprisingly quick to make out even when he doubled the recipe. 

Ingredients:

• 12 medium shrimp, peeled, deveined and chopped
• 4 ounces chicken, diced
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 1/4 cup chopped onion
• 1/4 cup chopped green bell pepper
• 1/4 cup chopped celery
• 2 tablespoons chopped garlic
• 1/2 cup chopped tomatoes
• 3 bay leaves
• 1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
• 1 teaspoon hot sauce
• 3/4 cup rice
• 3 cups chicken stock (can substitute water with chicken bullion)
• 5 ounces Andouille sausage, sliced
• Salt and pepper 
• Crushed Red Pepper Seeds (to taste)
• 1 tablespoon Creole seasoning (combine the following ingredients below -- you can store extra in an airtight container for later use)
• 2 1/2 tablespoons paprika
• 2 tablespoons salt
• 2 tablespoons garlic powder
• 1 tablespoon black pepper
• 1 tablespoon onion powder
• 1 tablespoon cayenne pepper
• 1 tablespoon dried oregano
• 1 tablespoon dried thyme

Step 1:  Season the chicken and shrimp with all of the seasoning.  Dave's adaptation was to throw crushed red pepper seeds to the mix.
Step 2:  Heat the olive oil in a pan to high heat.  Add the green peppers, onions and celery to soften -- about 3 minutes.
Step 3: Now add the garlic, tomatoes, bay leaves, Worcestershire sauce and hot sauce to the pan.
Step 4: Stir the rice in, and slowly add your broth (or water chicken bullion mixture, as Dave did).  Make sure to reduce the heat to medium, and stir it occasionally, as you don't want that rice sticking to the bottom and burning.  Rice should become tender after about 15 minutes.
Step 5:  Once that rice is tender, you can add your meats, ie. the chicken, shrimp and sausage.   It should take about 10 minutes before the meat is done. 
Step 6:  And if you watch TopChef, you would know that you always have to try your food before you serve it.  Now is when you get to tweak the taste by adding more salt, pepper and the Creole seasoning as necessary.



Mark's frozen drink is inspired by Slushy Whiskey Sours.  The major modifications were to up the amount of bourbon (I'm sure you are all so shocked) and to grow impatient waiting for it to freeze and to just drink it chilled.  This is, of course, assuming that it would ever freeze with the amount of alcohol Mark likes.

Ingredients:

• 1  (6-ounce) can frozen orange juice concentrate, thawed
• 1  (6-ounce) can frozen limeade concentrate, thawed
• 1  (6-ounce) can frozen lemonade concentrate, thawed
• 4 1/3  cups  water
• 1 liter  bourbon
• 1  (33.8-ounce) bottle club soda, chilled 

Step 1: Combine everything EXCEPT the club soda and stir.
Step 2: Freeze. To get it to freeze faster, you can pour the concoction into a zip lock bag for increased surface area.
Step 3: Wait 2+ hours.
Step 4: When you get tired of waiting, add the club soda and serve.  Trust me, it tastes great even if its not slushy. 


If anyone wants any other recipes, let me know or put up a comment, and hopefully the person will be willing to share

Southern Food Night

First off, I apologize for being so slow to put up all of these pictures and information.  Second, I realize that my writing is not as funny, witty or charismatic as I would like, so if anyone else wants to guest blog that's totally fine by me.  On a similar note, if anyone wants to redo this layout into something more stylish, I won't take it as some type of disparagement on my creative styling skills, which so far extend to picking a premade template. Anyway, onto our first meeting...

The first meeting was held at my (Liz's) tiny one bedroom apartment.  In an attempt to push my own cooking skills, I picked a theme for a type of food I was utterly unfamiliar with -- Southern food.  Having never been to a Bojangles, Waffle House or ever tried sweet tea, I decided to try my hand at fried chicken.  While I hoped to hedge my bets that something would be edible by making two different recipes, the real ace up my sleeve was the strong belief that people would even love eating shoe laces as long as they were deep fried.   In the end, I settled on Buttermilk Fried Chicken with Ancho Honey by Bobby Flay and Lemon Brined Chicken by Thomas Keller.







As for everyone else's dishes, it has  been awhile, so excuse me if my memory is just a wee bit fuzzy.  Or maybe it was Mark's drink that's interfering with my memory.  The night started off with a Dip from Meghan and some type of Cheese Stick from Erin. The other main dishes were Egg/Sausage/Ham and Veggie Casserole from Jen, Shrimp and Grits from Mike and Stef, and Jambalaya from Dave. Yes, Dave, Jambalaya is a MAIN dish, not side dish... but props to you for getting it made despite a power outage.  As for the actual sides, Dani brought both Biscuits and Cornbread, and gets presentation points for serving the cornbread in her brand new cast iron skillet.  There was also Mac and Cheese from Greg (though he also gets thanks for helping me clean and fry the chicken). Jeremy, probably also following the fried shoe lace theory, made Fried Okra.  Christine brought a Cabbage Salad and also dessert, TWO Pecan Pies.  And Mark brought us some Alcoholic "Frozen" Drink with dirt, which was good enough that I kept going despite the interesting addition. And finally, Angie brought ice.  Kind of.  Sadly, Ben couldn't make it so we didn't get to sample his Green Beans and Butter and Backfat, but I don't know if my heart could have handled it by this point.

All in all, the night seemed like a big success.  The food was great, and there was even leftovers for Erin to bring home.