Father's Day Favorite

Well, I decided to go back into our family favorites and recreate one of these dishes for Father's Day. I chose to take the favorite classic of baked drumsticks in tomato sauce over some sort of carb and a vegetable side.

First, the chicken! We have always done straight up tomato sauce with this dish, which is good... but I prefer a chunkier sauce rather than a viscous fluid. So, I chopped up a yellow onion and several cloves of garlic to put in with it. This wasn't enough, so I went ahead and added in some canned diced tomatoes instead of some of the sauce. There was still some canned tomato sauce, but not nearly as much.

It looked great going into the oven!

I added a little bit of water to the mix to help the sauce stuff move around and actually cover more of the chicken. After seeing how it came out, I disagree with this and will not do it next time... or only add a teensy.

Now, the vegetable side. We usually had canned green beans with this, but I wasn't in the mood to cook up the green beans and Dad wanted squash. I usually boil squash, but in the spirit of reinvention and doing things a teensy bit differently, I went ahead and sauteed them in some olive oil. They turned out great and I will probably do it this way again.

Last, but not least, we used to typically have this served over plain white rice. Rather than bust out the clunky rice cooker, I just went ahead and fixed some tricolor rotini noodles. Not the best, but honestly it's empty carbs either way and it may as well be interesting.

I also insisted we have a salad with this meal, as I had picked up two rather large packages of different salad mixes when I couldn't make up my mind at the store. It was good and I added in some carrots and mushrooms so it was not particularly boring, but obviously not worth taking a picture.

Tomato Baked Chicken Recipe:

Ingredients:
12 - 16 drumsticks (please decrease this if you need, we just have a gigantic family)
3  8 oz cans of tomato sauce, no salt added
2 14.5 oz cans of diced tomatoes (in this case I got flavored: Italian and Garlic + Olive Oil)
1 yellow onion, chopped
5 - 6 cloves of garlic
3 tbsp ground pepper

Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 425 F
2. Arrange drumsticks in suitable pan for roasting with some space between.
3. Pour tomato sauce, diced tomato, onions, garlic over drumsticks
4. Add a small amount of water to mix the sauce a bit
5. Sprinkle black pepper over chicken
6. Bake in oven for 40 minutes
7. Remove from oven and turn drumsticks over, then place back in for another 40 minutes
8. Serve over rice or noodles with sauce ladeled over and enjoy!

Cottage Pie

Well, on Sunday night I decided to cook dinner. It was a good evening all around and full of enjoyment. I have decided to share a recipe that is a huge hit in my family. The recipe is for Cottage Pie, which is a huge hit in my family. In the US, it's common to hear cottage pie called shepherd's pie, but shepherd's pie refers to the use of lamb or mutton, which we don't really use much here. I confirmed that with a friend the other day since we've been calling it shepherd's pie all along. The more you know! At any rate, it's a family favorite. My brother gobbles the stuff up like you would not believe. It's a good way to get him to eat vegetables since they're mixed in so well.

I would like to note, that this recipe is one that can easily feed a family of seven with at least one serving left over for lunch when served with a salad. If you have a regular, normal-sized family I would suggest using one casserole dish, one pound of meat, and one pound of vegetables.

 

Also, by recipe... I mean general recipe. I'm absolutely terrible with measuring out actual food items while cooking and am famous for my method of "some" cooking. Put some of this, some of that. Never an actual measurement beyond what I happen to see on packages when I open them. Ha.

Ingredients:

2 lb lean ground beef or turkey

2 lb frozen mixed vegetables (I tend to get the ones with carrots, peas, green beans, lima beans, etc)

7-8 medium-ish potatoes (I tend to get the red potatoes and approximately one per person that is a size that would not make them cry if it was a baked potato)

Fat-free sour cream

Worcestershire sauce

Garlic- fresh, minced, powder... we like it all

Ground black pepper

Basil

Thyme

 

1. Set water to boil and preheat oven to 350.

2. Peel and quarter potatoes.

3. Peel a few cloves of garlic and add in to potatoes. This is optional. We are garlic FREAKS.

4. Put quartered potatoes and whole garlic cloves in boiling water, boil for about ten minutes or until fork tender.

5. While waiting for potatoes to boil, put meat and vegetables into a large pan to brown and cook, adding Worcestershire sauce in not-too-liberal amounts along with minced garlic, ground black pepper, basil, and thyme. Notice there are not measurements because I tend to cook by smell. Also, be sure not to accidentally dump ALL the Worcestershire sauce in. There is such a thing as too much.

6. When potatoes are ready, strain out the water and set aside.

7. When the ground beef or turkey is browned, evenly line the bottom of two casserole dishes with the mixture and set aside. If you use meat with a higher fat content, you may want to strain it to get the oil out. If it's too fatty the oil will bubble over the mashed potatoes when baking. I don't usually have this problem since we use very lean beef or turkey, like I said.

8. Mash your potatoes and add ground black pepper and garlic powder. Add fat free sour cream to the mixture to give it a more smooth and creamy texture. I do this because I am on weight watchers and it is significantly better than butter as far as points go. If you like butter in your mashed potatoes, go for it. This is just a healthier option.

9. Smooth the mashed potatoes over the cooked meat in the bottom of your casserole dishes. I tend to do this with a spatula and make cool ridges and such. 

10. Put in oven and cook for half an hour or so or until potatoes become golden on top. I do not like to bake mine as long since the little dude is usually doing the hungry dance in front of the oven pretty much immediately after it goes in.