Since suddenly being thrust into the roll of full-time father of three, there are things that I seem to have trouble getting accomplished as readily as I did before. having three boys in the house tends to make me forgetful.  I forget to finish laundry, walk away from dishes, forget where I put my keys and sometimes I even forget to eat.

I know that not eating isn’t healthy.  I would never let my kids go without a meal, but in the dead heat of the day, I’m finding that remembering to eat before dinner has become a challenge.  To try and get myself to eat a more balanced and more creative diet, I’ve begun telling myself that lunch is the perfect time for foods that the kids probably won’t eat.

Doing so has made remembering lunch more fun.  I know there won’t be an argument over what’s served and that I can eat the things I love with abandon.  Just feed the littlest, put him down for a nap, then go crazy trying out new flavors.  I’s an almost guilty pleasure that I’m happy to say has been effective.  I haven’t forgotten lunch in a few days.

This is a simple dish, but packed with flavor.  I opted to skip noodles or rice this time, more for the sake of getting it on a plate than for any other reason.  It held up on its own, but without some form of starch, I’d call this a great side rather than an entree or full lunch.  In any event, give it a shot, I think you’ll like it!

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© Jerry D. Russell and Cooking... by the seat of my Pants!.com, 2009. | Permalink | 3 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: busy days, Garlic, parenting, Peppers, schedules, Stir Fry, suasage

It sometimes amazes me that in today’s world of high-end restaurants and lofty food shows the simpler cuts of meat are either forgotten or worse, are thought of as something only useful for the most basic of culinary tasks. My issue with this trend is that some of the cuts now shunned by most shoppers have the capability of producing the most wonderful and intense flavors when treated correctly. These ingredients should be commonly used, not relegated to a back shelf in the meat aisle with labeling spelling out their least delectable use.

Take this poor misunderstood specimen:

When I went into the market the other day, I had no intention of braising anything.  It’s still full-blown summertime hot here in Far Northern California with temperatures well in excess of 100 degrees on most days, so having something simmering on the cook top wasn’t the first thing on my mind.  Fortunately for me, my first reaction to the above label was something like;

“For Stock!  Are you kidding me? That’s a perfect braise!”

And with just a little love, it was.

I think too many people get caught up in the idea that braising takes a very long time. In fact, the secret to a great braise is less about the actual cooking time than it is about the love put into the first few steps of the process.  A good sear, the proper accouterments and the ability to simply sit back and let the thing happen are all that is really required to achieve stunning results for very little effort and even less money.

In the case of this dish, a bit of good port, some onions, garlic, vegetable broth, a few herbs and some aggressive seasoning was all that it took to elevate this humble shank cut to new levels of perfection.

Granted, I did use a bottle of port valued at over $30.00, but only because I had it lying about.  An equal amount of a $7.00 port or a $5.00 Marsala would have served just as well in this case. (Even a cheap Burgundy or Zinfandel would have been fine.) A great braise is about methods.  It’s about deep, rich flavors. It’s about taking all the love you can give a dish and letting the meal return the favor.

This recipe won’t let you down.

It may be the dog days of summer, but winter will be here before you know it.  This is most definitely a recipe you should explore and make your own.  Add some tomato paste, a few mushrooms, a bit of whatever else you like.  Toss some potatoes in about 30 minutes before serving.  Top a salad with the beef and make a vinaigrette from the jous.  It really doesn’t matter.  This is worth exploring.  It will satisfy your heart, your mind and hopefully, a good portion of your soul.

It’s that good.

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© Jerry D. Russell and Cooking... by the seat of my Pants!.com, 2009. | Permalink | 6 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Beef, braise, Braised, entree, Garlic, main dish, Onions, Recipes, slow cooked, wine

Fried rice is something I’ve covered on this blog on more than one occasion. Fried rice is a passion for both my wife and myself.  It’s a staple meal in our home for its versatility, ease of cooking and its ability to carry the flavors of almost any ingredient added to it, but this post is not about the rice.

Don’t get me wrong,  the rice was wonderful; but in this instance it was eclipsed by the accidental perfection of the marinade used on the pork.  It’s good folks.  Good enough to consider using as cologne.  Good enough to make a full batch on skewers and call it a snack for one person good. Good enough that I almost don’t want to share it with you good.

But I’m just not that cruel. This must be shared. All I ask is that if you put it on a restaurant menu, I get a handy little royalty check and credit for the recipe.  This recipe is a keeper.

The flavors in the marinade are more Middle-Eastern than Asian, but they pair very well with the rice and just a bit of soy sauce. The pork is savory, sweet and spicy at the same time, but so tender you can cut it with a glance.  No knife necessary.

I could rave on about this for hours, but I think I’ll end the suspense and just get to the recipe.

… [visit site to read more]

© Jerry D. Russell and Cooking... by the seat of my Pants!.com, 2009. | Permalink | 2 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Asian, Asian Cuisine, Garlic, Middle Eastern, pork, rice

Frittata…  It sounds so alien, so elegant, so scary and difficult!  But if you think of it as what it really is, you’ll quickly learn to embrace the wonder that is a frittata.  you’ll find yourself eating them far too often.  You may make your family sick of them in a hurry, but you’ll never look back.

While the word Frittata may conjure some air of elegance and difficulty, it’s really just an Italian version of the omelet.  The basic ingredients are eggs, milk and perhaps a little cheese, and while I’ve seen some versions that looked very difficult to produce, for the most part the frittata is far easier to construct than a french omelet will ever be.  If possible, they taste better, too.

The only tool you really need for a perfect frittata is an oven-safe pan or dish that you can get screaming hot with nothing in it but a bit of oil.  The real secret is to start with a hot pan and a hot oven.  The rest of the work is done by the liquid and the eggs.  Basically all you as the cook have to do is stir a few ingredients and then peek at the oven every once-in-a-while.  In about 20 minutes, you’re done. (Note: larger frittata’s have longer cooking times.  That’s where the jiggle-test comes in as described in the recipe.)

The frittata is the perfect vehicle for any leftovers you might have on hand.  it gladly accepts meat, pasta, cheese, sausage, cooked greens of any type, vegetables or just about anything else you feel like tossing at it. One of my personal favorites is simply made with broccoli and some shredded cheddar and occasionally some leftover ham.  The fact that they are good and good for you is a bonus, especially considering the versatility of the dish.

Make them for dinner, make them for brunch, eat them for breakfast, my goodness they’re fun. I would eat them in a train. I would eat them in a plane. I think I’ll make up one in green. Or do you think that would cause a scene? *ahem!* OK, enough with that.

Enjoy the recipe, folks.

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© Jerry D. Russell and Cooking... by the seat of my Pants!.com, 2008. | Permalink | 5 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: breakfast, brunch, eggs, Garlic, Italian, lunch, Onions, Recipes, Sausage

Ah, fall.  Squash are everywhere, and in every variety.  It’s the time of year for soups, stews, chili and other things made from late crops, and I for one am just in love with the idea.  Seriously, what in nature is more creamy and luscious than a roasted squash or sweet potato?  Both are a perfect compliment to anything else you happen to have hangin in the oven for long periods of time, and they make the house smell fantastic!

The other thing I adore about squash is its shelf life.  You can leave a squash hanging out for quite a while before you finally get to it.  sometimes weeks, without worrying that it won’t just be sitting there waiting to become something wonderful.  In the case of Halloween and Thanksgiving, I tend to buy them as table decoration for this week and dinner for next week.  It’s perfect double-duty food, and not much makes me happier.

For this round I go to the unsung hero of the squash world, the spaghetti squash. For most people this is just a replacement for thin pasta to be used as the base for a marinara or Bolognese.  In my opinion that is a crying shame.  This is not pasta.  it will never taste like pasta.  You can’t make it taste like pasta, and why would you want to?

This dish is slightly spicy, has a wonderful texture and is the perfect compliment for a roast chicken or pork loin.  It’s not heavy but it is quite filling and the flavors are nutty and sweet all at the same time.  Add a little smokiness from the bacon and you’re all set!  Of course you could always skip the bacon if you wanted to go vegetarian.  it would still be fabulous.

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© Jerry D. Russell and Cooking... by the seat of my Pants!.com, 2008. | Permalink | 13 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: autumn, Bacon, fall, Garlic, Recipes, roasted, squash

From the lost recipe files:  I found the pics for this hanging out in a folder from JUNE!  Luckily, I still remember how I made the dish.

As Italian chefs the world over will tell you, the key behind a great pasta dish is that no one ingredient ever overloads any of the others, and that the pasta is truly supposed to be the star of the show.  This is one dish that follows those guidelines, even with the strong flavors of bacon and greens tossed into the mix.

The secret with this or any other pasta dish is to make sure that you add just enough sauce to coat the pasta, not drown it. This may go against the American tradition of dumping a full three cups of sauce over the top of a quarter pound of noodles, then topping it with some form of meatball, but believe me, it’s worth the restraint.

Let’s revisit summer, shall we?

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© Jerry D. Russell and Cooking... by the seat of my Pants!.com, 2008. | Permalink | 6 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Bacon, Cheese, Garlic, Onions, Pasta, Penne, Recipes

The Holiday Season is here.  That means that in the next day or so this blog is going to be full of baked goodies, cookies, candies and mounds of Holiday-style comfort food goodness.  But what will the food blogger himself be eating through all of this? Probably something a lot like the dish pictured above.

This lunch, like many I find myself eating lately, is the result of having very little time to focus on myself while either getting things ready for one of my blogs, trying to find something in the freelance market that I’m willing to do for what they aren’t willing to pay, or dealing with the thousand little things I have to learn that goes along with my son’s therapy. It’s something I can throw together in just a few minutes, tastes good either hot or room temp and can be snacked on for hours while I’m in the middle of other things.

The ingredients are simple, the result is satisfying, and there’s very little effort involved in making this one.  Consider it my way of sharing a little secret with all of you.  I’m not always eating what you’re seeing.  Sometimes those dishes are made just for my wife.

Besides.  I really love this stuff!

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© Jerry D. Russell and Cooking... by the seat of my Pants!.com, 2008. | Permalink | 5 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Asian, Garlic, Noodles, Onions, Recipes, Sausage

The weather in our part of the world finally got chilly.  The moment that happened I had a definite urge to slow cook something for a very, very long time. Luckily i had just picked up a pork butt roast at the store a few days before.  Originally I’d planned on grilling and smoking, but with the mercury in the 40’s the roast suddenly had a new direction in life. the only question was exactly how I was going to braise it.

The answer came more from a need to get going than it did from planning.  There on the counter sat a few onions that needed to be used and a few heads of garlic that are on their way to getting woody, so those looked like prime candidates.  On the other counter sits a bottle of Sherry that’s past its prime for baking, but would still go wonderfully in a sauce.  Then there was a lonely 1/2 stick of butter and most of a box of vegetable stock in the fridge… I was good to go!

With just a little effort and a little patience we had what is very likely the best pork roast I have ever made. The pork was tender, so packed full of flavor that a little goes a very long way, and with the potatoes…  Well, let’s just say that on winter days when I don’t have a post for this blog, I’m probably making this dish again! I hope Y’all enjoy it as much as we did.

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© Jerry D. Russell and Cooking... by the seat of my Pants!.com, 2008. | Permalink | 3 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Braised, Garlic, pork, Potatoes, Recipes

There’s something about the onset of Autumn that brings out a deep need for me to make soup. Winter has its slow cooked meals and stews, summer is for smoking and grilling and spring is for whatever fresh greens might be coming up, but Autumn and Fall are for soups, the heartier the better. The closer to winter it gets, the heartier the soups get, but right at this point, when temperatures in the early mornings are in the fifties and afternoons are in the eighties, it’s time for lighter fare, usually vegetable or fish. It’s a time of year I wait for, and now it’s here.

I got the idea for this dish from my herb garden.  My basil has grown into a jungle and the oregano is doing fairly well.  With ten pounds of herbs outside, I figured I’d best find a way to start putting a dent in it.  Since basil and tomatoes go so well together, it seemed obvious that I needed to toss a tomato-basil soup together and I wanted a thin soup to dip the crusty rolls in.  My wife is a huge fan of zucchini, so that addition was a no-brainer. The rest was just seat of my pants cooking at its best, the kind that produces something that is far more than you expected, but with very little effort. In a way it’s the perfection of keeping the soul of your ingredients pure, and purely enjoyable as well.

I hope you try and enjoy!

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© Jerry D. Russell and Cooking... by the seat of my Pants!.com, 2008. | Permalink | 11 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Basil, Garlic, Italian, Oregano, Port Wine, Recipes, Soups and Stews, Zucchini

I may not have been born Texan, but Texas is where I call home these days and proudly so at that. Texas has been good to both my wife and I from the day we set foot here and even though we’re sure to leave her eventually, for now I’m Texan, and a piece of my heart will always be in the Lone Star State. A part of me will always be Texan. The place is just like that, it can’t help itself.

Having said that, you might be able to surmise how tickled I was to get a message from the Texas Beef Council asking me to help spread the word about Texas Beef.   We really don’t need to go into all the yelling and carrying on that happened on this end of that conversation, so let’s just say I was happy to accept shall we? The nice folks over at Texas Beef sent me a few recipes and a $25.00 prepaid card to buy whatever ingredients I’d need for the party, which was nice of them since I would have done it on my own dime anyway.

After looking over our choices, my wife and I decided on the Gazpacho Steak Salad. It looked pretty refreshing for days still well into the 90’s with an average 45% humidity and it sounded a bit different from the dishes we’d been having over the past few weeks, which would make for an interesting change of pace, so I set off for the store to get what I needed and got to work.

Of course I couldn’t follow the directions 100%, could I? That’s not in my nature unless bread making is involved. (which is why I leave that up to my wife when possible).  Not only did I forget I’d used up one of the ingredients, but I managed to misread the recipe in the process of making the dish, though neither change was that large a departure from the original.

My thoughts?  Well, you’ll have to read through my version of the recipe to get those.  I wouldn’t want to give everything away at the very beginning of the story.

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© Jerry D. Russell and Cooking... by the seat of my Pants!.com, 2008. | Permalink | 12 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Beef, Garlic, greens, Salad, Steak, Tomatoes