Pot Roast and Mashed Potatoes

I love the Pioneer Woman. I had no idea I would be using one of Ree's recipes today, but I had thawed out a piece of beef I had in the freezer and really didn't know what to do with it. At first I thought I was going to do a roast in the crock pot, but I didn't have any potatoes and I'm not a fan of the crock pot for that because my veggies always seem to come out like mush. So after some google recon, I saw a link for the "Perfect Pot Roast" on the Pioneer Woman Cooks and gave it a click. Lo and Behold, her recipe went in the oven and called for only beef, carrots, and onion, all of which I had.

I really do like her site, you could say this blog is an homage to her of sorts, the pictures and step by step walk through of the recipes has helped me out tons of times.

The starting line up:

That piece of meat was half of a 3-4 pound hunk which I cut in half and tossed in the freezer, so it's 2 pounds at most. Here's my ingredients list:

• 1.5 to 2 lb of beef
• 1 onion
• 10 small carrots
• 2 garlic cloves
• 1 can beef broth
• 1/4 tsp thyme
• 1/4 tsp rosemary
• 2 Tbsp olive oil
• kosher salt
• pepper
• Preheat oven to 275 deg

Chop your veggies, salt and pepper your beef on all sides, and add the olive oil to your pan. You'll want it hot (med-high) so as to sear the outside of the beef and brown the veggies.

Get to searing.

I'm so dedicated to searing I even got the sides. Once you have everything browned, you'll want to clear the pan for deglazing, so you can get all those burned/browned little bits off the bottom. You need to contribute "maximum effort" if you want maximum flavor.

By the way, go see Deadpool, but don't take the kids. Back to the cooking.

Okay, so at this point I added the chopped garlic to the pan right before deglazing. Ree gave it as an optional ingredient but didn't show where she used it in her walk-through. I feel like in most recipes you brown it first off for about a minute or two before adding everything else, so I tossed it in here and cooked for about 30 seconds before I deglazed with the can of beef broth. Now I'm not a garlic fiend by any means, but I had some on the shelf, so by god I am using it. I like to act like I know what I'm doing.

At this point I tossed in another can's worth of water. I'm not sure if I really needed it but whatever. Re-place your meat and veggies in your pan for a pre-roasting photo op.

Oh yeah, you'll want to add the thyme and rosemary before you cover and toss in the oven. I only used 1/4 tsp each because I didn't know how much Ree used and I didn't want to over-do it.

Now, at this point I had three hours to kill (275 degrees) so I followed Ree's link for the perfect mashed potatoes to go with the roast and I made a quick trip to the store. NOTE. This recipe was a little heavy on the butter and cream cheese for my waistline, so I cut those down to a little bit less than half.

The bench warming reserves:

• 2.5 lb of russet potatoes
• 3 Tbsp real butter
• 3 oz philly cream cheese
• 1/4 cup half-and-half
• 1/4 tsp season salt
• 1/4 tsp pepper

Preheat a large pot of water. I had 3 large potatoes for this that I peeled and chopped into 1 to 1.5" inch pieces and tossed them in. Don't worry if it's not boiling yet. Set the timer on the microwave for 30 minutes but start checking for done-ness at 25 minutes. Once done, drain and return to the pot. Move to a new burner and set it on low heat. If you have a potato masher great. I used a fork cuz I'm gangsta.
 

Add in the butter, cream cheese, half-and-half, season salt, and pepper. MIX.

Butter a pan that can go in the oven and transfer the mixed fluffy deliciousness into it. Top with a little bit of butter.

Cover that bad boy with foil and transfer into the over. I put it in when the roast still had about 15 minutes left and cranked the temperature up to 350.

Once I pulled the roast out, I left the potatoes in for another 15 minutes.

Upon checking them, they still didn't look like Rees with a nice golden brown crust, so I moved them up a rack in the oven and turned on the broiler to brown the top of them. After 2 or 3 minutes, that did the trick and I pulled them out.

Time to eat!

Chicken Spaghtetti with Tomato Sauce

For whatever reason, I decided tonight that I wanted spaghetti with chicken in it instead of ground beef. Don't ask me why. Maybe it's because I've been on a chicken kick. Kickin chicken. IDK.

Tonight's latest victims on The Cooking Dead:

Those are really black olives in that pepper jar. Why you have to buy them in a can I'll never know.

I guess I'll give you an ingredients list. This was pretty off the cuff:

• 1/2 lb of chicken breast 
• 1/3 lb of whole wheat spaghetti
• 2/3 of a jar of Ragu chunky
• 1/4 of a yellow onion
• 1 clove of garlic
• A handful of olives (I raided the fridge for anything else I could throw in)
• Parmesan cheese
• 1 Tbsp olive oil

Gotta start by getting the frying pan hot with the olive oil and the Ragu chunky simmering.

I chopped up the chicken, onion, garlic, and black olives. I know I look like I'm being sanitary but let's be serious. Everything's about to get cooked in the skillet.

Saute the garlic for a minute or so. Add the onions and let them get translucent, probably 3 or 4 minutos. Pause The Walking Dead because you want to make sure you see the last episode in full before the mid-season premier.

Resume cooking. Throw in the chicken and let it brown.

Oh yeah, if you happened to have a pot of water boiling, now would be the time to throw in the whole wheat spaghetti. Sorry, I forgot to give you a picture and remind you to have boiling water ready. My bad. Next comes the sauce modification...

We're about to make this Ragu Chunky into Ragu Obese. Now let that simmer a few minutes while the spaghetti is cooking.

You know what, tomorrow is a holiday and I don't have to work. Why not.

Well $hit. I forgot to set the timer on the spaghetti. Guess that's what I get for not including that reminder. Gonna have to taste test on one minute intervals until we are AL-DENT-AY...

And I mean "AYYY" like the Fonz.

Commence plate preparation:

The finished product. Not Pictured: Walkers taking a bite out of the mid-season premier's first victims on the Tele that is just outside of frame.

Bourbon Salmon - Updated

Forgive me, I cooked tonight with some Bullet for my Valentine playing in the background. I'm sure something will get knocked off the counter. Also, this is one of those rare times when I literally had everything a recipe calls for (score). However, that's usually a sign. A sign of misfortune, LATER.

Tonight's starring cast on Chef of Thrones:

Roslin caught a fine fat trout... err salmon. We went without the wolf pelts though. Arya wouldn't like that.

Please, just.. No.

So since I'm only eating one piece of fish, I need to halve the recipe. Google tells me a tablespoon is a half ounce, so the revised ingredients list is below:

• 1 Fresh Salmon Fillet
• 1 Tbsp extra virgin olive oil
• 4 Tbsp light brown sugar
• 2 Tbsp Bourbon
• 1 Tbsp soy sauce
• 1 Tbsp fresh squeezed lemon juice
• 1 clove garlic, minced
• 1 tsp grated ginger
• 0.5 tsp Kosher salt
• 0.5 tsp fresh milled pepper

To start, we need to mix everything from brown sugar on down in a sauce pan. This is easy enough except it requires mincing the garlic and ginger.

If life doesn't give you lemons, just have to hit up the bottle.

Prepare yourself for my fancy pants way of mincing garlic:

Not as good as this guy does it (holy $hit man), but my grater has never failed me yet... aside from trying to eat my finger.

God only know's how old this ginger is. I dug it out of the back of the crisper.

Anddd everything goes into the saucepan on medium low heat, to simmer for about 5 minutes until it starts to thicken up. I think the recipe used the word "nappe", whatever the f&*# that means. Oh yes, coats the back of the spoon... So I might have went a little heavy on the bourbon, cuz my nose was tingling once it started bubbling. But hey, all the alcohol burns off, right?  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Now on to the salmon. To start, we have to get some oil in the saute pan and get it heating up. Good thing my ultra expensive plastic bottle of olive oil from Kroger comes with an infallibly handy plastic popper thingy on the lid.... Well, it broke (AHA I knew it)!

What an asshole.

So tonight I improvised again (this time proud to announce without Google), and pretended it really was an ultra expensive, fine bottle of olive oil, and I opened it with the wine corkscrew. That's right, don't mess with me.

Sure looks like a tablespoon. Or was it only supposed to be a half? Oh well.

Heat your pan over medium high heat. I had my burner set just a smidge under half way. You might want to bump it up to just a smidge OVER half way.

It puts the pepper on its skin... Or else it gets the... salt again?

Now we have to prep the salmon. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Your pan should be nice and ready at this point, so go ahead and toss in mr. fish skin side down and brown or sear (actually, what do you call this for fish? I'm asking...) for 60 to 90 seconds each side.

Nope. Not going to show you how i managed to flip this giant bastard without messing it up. Best of luck to you. I did use a cast iron skillet for the saute pan, you don't have to but it just makes it so much easier to transfer to the oven for the big finish.

My oven mitt has a hole in it. I'm living dangerously.

Into the oven at 400 deg for 3-5 minutes. I went the full 5 because I don't think I had my pan hot enough when I seared each side. Wasn't quite enough crisp to it.

 Our finished fish with our finished bourbon glaze. Go ahead and pour that sucker over the fish...
 

Pro Tip: You know what, you actually want to remove your glaze from all heat and let it sit for a few minutes before pouring. Otherwise its bourbon marinade and runs right off your fish. Ooooops.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯  Still tasted good.

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The full recipe is below, I think I got it out of a magazine I picked up on the bourbon trail:

2 Servings:

Ingredients:
2 Fresh Salmon Fillets
1 oz extra virgin olive oil
4 oz light brown sugar
2 oz Bourbon
2 Tbsp soy sauce
2 Tbsp fresh squeezed lemon juice
2 clove garlic, minced
2 tsp grated ginger
1 tsp Kosher salt
1 tsp fresh milled pepper

For Bourbon Glaze:
1. Combine light brown sugar, Bourbon, soy sauce, lemon juice, garlic, ginger, salt and pepper, in a saute pan on medium heat. Be sure to stir the mixture frequently to keep it from scorching.

2. As the glaze reduces be sure not to allow it to get too thick (should take no longer than 5 minutes). Once it becomes nappe or coats the back of the spoon, it is done.

3. Place the saute pan on medium-high heat, then season the salmon with salt and pepper. Add the oil to the cold pan and as the oil heats and moves freely in the pan, place salmon inside.

4. Brown each side of the salmon for 60-90 seconds each side.

5. Take out of pan and place in a 400 F oven for 3-5 minutes, depending on the thickness.

6. Remove from oven and glaze with the Maker's Mark bourbon glaze and serve.