Cooking: Spicy Peppered Jerky

This is my husband's recipe!
And the first "Husband Feature" on my blog, keep your eyes out for more in the future!

Ingredients: Beef eye of round, chipotle peppers in adobo sauce,
Worcestershire sauce, liquid smoke, granulated garlic,
onion powder, smoked paprika, chili powder, cayenne pepper
salt, pepper 

Trim all the fat off the beef.

Our dogs love this part, they get the scraps :)

This is what it should look like when you're done:

Slice the meat into ¼ inch slices.

Mix together the can of chipotle adobo peppers (diced), 2 teaspoons granulated garlic, 2 teaspoons onion power, 4 teaspoons salt, 2 teaspoons smoked paprika, 1 teaspoon chili powder, 1 tablespoon cayenne pepper, 1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce.

Marinate the meat in this mixture overnight in the fridge.

Pat the meat dry with paper towels (else you'll have wet clumps of spices on your finished product).

Put meat in food dehydrator and pat with fresh ground pepper.

Dry for 8 hours in the food dehydrator. Don't dry it for too long, else it will be too dry and brittle, it should have a slight chewiness to it.

Finished product:

Cooking: Creamy Cajun Chicken With Zucchini Noodles

I just [finally] joined Pinterest, so I've been collecting all sorts of new ideas to try!

I always try to give credit where credit is due. My inspiration for tonight's meal came from 2 different blog posts I found on Pinterest:

• Creamy Cajun Chicken Pasta on "Plain Chicken"
• Zucchini Noodles with Chicken and Tangy Peanut Sauce on "Kitchen Confidante"

The mats:

Chicken thighs, sun-dried tomatoes, zucchini, yellow squash,
butter, heavy cream, parmesan cheese, garlic, basil,
Cajun seasoning, pepper, salt, green onion (not pictured),
and cayenne pepper (not pictured)

I started by using the shoe-string blade on my mandolin to cut up the zucchini and yellow squash.

And also cutting the chicken thighs into strips with kitchen shears. The chicken was then tossed with the Cajun seasoning, about 2 tablespoons.

The easiest way to "toss" the chicken with the spices
is going Alton Brown style and using your hands!

In a large pan, saute the chicken with a couple tablespoons of butter until it's done.

While the chicken is cooking, blanch the zucchini and yellow squash in boiling water for about a minute. Drain well. I gave it a rinse in cool water to stop the cooking process so it wouldn't get mushy.

When the chicken is done, add the heavy cream (I ended up only using 1 cup), minced garlic, diced green onions, diced sun-dried tomatoes (easiest to cut-up with kitchen shears), basil, salt, and pepper. I also wanted a little more heat, so I added some cayenne pepper. Heat a few minutes until everything is warm.

Toss in the "noodles".

Serve topped with fresh-grated parmasan cheese.

Husband Approved! The husband said this was definitely a "repeat" meal! He was skeptical at first (and even tried to talk me out of it) when I told him I was using zucchini and yellow squash instead of traditional noodles, but he was pleasantly surprised!

Cooking: Pot Roast

Pot roast: An extremely common dish that I have never cooked before!

I do a lot of cooking, but I don't typically do the "meat and potatoes" route. I used the recipe Emeril's Pot Roast.

1. Cut slits in roasts and stuff with garlic cloves.
2. Rub with olive oil, season with salt & pepper. (I tried to do the oil "nicely" using a basting brush, but ended up just using my hands.)

I happened to have had 1 corn fed and 1 grass fed roast.
Check out the difference in color & marbling!
(Grass fed roast is on the right.)

3. Sear roasts on all sides.

4. Put in dutch oven and add 4 cups beef broth/stock. Cover with lid.
5. Put in 350° oven for 4 hours.

6. Toss veggies (1 lb each carrots, potatoes, turnips, and parsnips; 2 onions) with olive oil, salt, and pepper.
7. Add to dutch oven, return to oven for 1 hour.

 Finished product!

For gravy:
Drain remaining liquid in the dutch oven into a saucepan, bring to a simmer.
Whisk together 1/4 cup flour with 1/2 cup water, whisk mixture into saucepan. Simmer for 5 minutes.

What I would do different next time:

• Deglaze the searing pan with some of the stock/broth so all those tasty bits would be in the pot and not washed down the drain.
• Nix the potatoes and up the quantity of other veggies. Next to the other vegetables, the potatoes were rather bland.
• Not use as much water when making the gravy, it was a tad too runny.

Meet My Meat

This week I got my first delivery from Fresh Connect KC. Locally grown, pastured livestock, no hormones or antibiotics. Dropped off right at my front door!

Here's what was in the haul:

• 1 beef arm roast
• 1 beef rump roast
• 1 lb beef kabob meat
• 1 lb beef stew meat
• 1 pkg beef short ribs
• 1 lamb roast
• 2 lamb shanks
• 1 lb lamb stew meat
• 2 lbs ground lamb
• 6 lbs ground bison
• 1 pork roast
• 1 pkg pork chops
• 1 lb breakfast sausage

And the best part was that is was reasonably priced!  A few cents over $5/pound. I wouldn't be able buy this at the grocery store for that price; and it wouldn't be as good of quality either. I will definitely order from them again in the future!