BBQ Pork Sandwiches

On a hot day there is nothing like a dinner you can put on the table in just minutes. If you have some leftover cooked pork (leftover pork roast is perfect) this one is on the table in about 20 minutes.

The first step is to mix up the BBQ sauce. This one takes the short cut of your favorite bottled sauce then it gets a few additions (only 2 actually) and it becomes something that is just amazing. One of the ingredients might surprise you but this sauce has quickly become my favorite. I have made this with several different flavors and brands of bottled sauce and they all turn out great. Don't worry you won't actually taste the cola it just lightens up the bottled sauce and makes it taste a lot fresher.

While the sauce is simmering you can cut up that cooked pork. After that all you need to do is let the sauce and the pork get to know each other and you have a wonderful dinner. I serve this on purchased hamburger buns but I think it would also be really good over a bed of rice.

BBQ Pork Sandwiches

½ cup bottled BBQ sauce

½ cola (regular with sugar not the diet stuff)

1 Tablespoon dry minced onion

1 ½ diced cooked pork

2 split hamburger buns

Combine the BBQ sauce, cola and dry onion in a small saucepan and bring to a simmer. Allow to simmer about 10 to 15 minutes. This allows the flavors to mellow and the onion to soften.

Add the cut up pork and simmer for another 5 minutes or until hot.

Serve on buns.

Oatmeal M&M Cookies

One of my favorite things to bake is cookies but, most of my favorite recipes make 3 or 4 or more dozen cookies. Not really practical if only one or two people are trying to eat them. You either are soo bored of the cookies by the time you finish the batch or they become so stale you end up tossing them. Or you gorge on them and eat way too many the day you made them. In any case making 36 or so cookies just doesn't work for the small household.

That is the very reason I started tracking down some basic small batch cookie recipes which I have been playing with to replicate the cookies I already love to bake. My main rule is that the recipe can make no more than 12 cookies. The first cookie recipe I have for you is my Oatmeal M&M Cookies. We love this recipe and I think it turns out better than my original one that made a huge batch. This recipe makes between 9 and 11 cookies for me, depending on how big I make them.

On the subject of how big to make them, I started using a cookie scoop years ago and I always portion my cookie dough this way. Basically a cookie scoop is a small ice cream scoop. My favorite one holds just about a Tablespoon if you fill it level with the edge. For most cookies I scoop a bit more than what fits in the scoop, kind of like I do when I scoop ice cream with my larger scoop. If you don't already have one of these scoops I do recommend going out to find one.

The other thing I find especially useful in baking on a small scale is a set of measuring spoons that includes an 1/8 teaspoon. I really find this to be a necessary tool in my small scale baking.

So let's get to this recipe.

Oatmeal M&M Cookies

3 tablespoons butter (the real stuff, salted) softened

3 tablespoons dark brown sugar

1 tablespoon granulated sugar

1 egg yolk

½ teaspoon vanilla extract

1/3 cup all purpose flour

¼ teaspoon baking soda

1/8 teaspoon salt (since I only use Kosher salt I use a heaped 1/8 teaspoon)

½ cup old fashioned rolled oats (quick oats will work but I prefer the texture of the old fashioned)

1 (3.14 oz) package M&M's- mine was labeled as “sharing size”

Pre-heat your oven to 350°F.

Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper.

In a medium size bowl cream the butter and the sugars together until light and fluffy using a hand held mixer.

Add the egg yolk and vanilla and mix until well combined.

In a small bowl combine the flour, baking soda and salt. Stir well to combine then add to the butter/sugar mixture. Mix until everything is well combined.

Add the oatmeal and M&Ms and stir just until well combined. This step is best done by hand so you don't break up the candy pieces.

Using a cookie scoop or spoons, scoop the cookie dough onto the parchment lined cookie sheet. Bake for around 10 minutes, until the cookies are just browning. 10 minutes is how long my oven takes, yours may vary so you should probably check at 9 minutes and know it might take up to 11 minutes all together to cook in your oven.

Leave on the hot cookie sheet to cool for 5 minutes then move to a cooling rack until completely cooled.

Now sit back with a nice hot cup of your favorite beverage (mine is coffee) and enjoy a couple of those wonderful cookies while they are still warm. 

Rainbow Pasta Veggie Salad

I do love a good salad especially as the weather gets warmer. This one is really yummy and makes 2 generous servings. If you add about a cup of your favorite cooked meat you could eat this as a main dish (especially on the hot days to come this summer)

Like with all salads of this type the veggies I am using are suggestions, feel free to use what you love (or heck just what you have in the fridge) Just try to keep to about the same total amount of veggies.

Dressing:

6 Tablespoons mayo

1 Tablespoon lemon juice

½ Tablespoon sugar

¼ teaspoon salt

dash of pepper

Salad

¾ cup Rainbow pasta

½ cup thinly sliced carrot (about 1 medium carrot)

2 thinly sliced radishes

2 sliced green onions

½ large cucumber cut in half lengthwise and thinly sliced

½ Tablespoon chopped fresh parsley

Cook the pasta as directed on the package and cool.

Combine all the dressing ingredients in a small bowl.

In a medium bowl combine the cooked pasta, all the veggies and the dressing. Toss to combine well.

Chill in the fridge for a couple of hours before serving.

Flaky Sandwich Roll

I actually found this recipe (or at least the one that this was based on) last December. I had decided to do an appetizer buffet for Christmas day and was in search of items to go on it. I ran across a sandwich recipe and the first thing I thought was if I change it like this I would have an excellent sandwich for dinner. So the playing around with the recipe began.

We love this sandwich year round with a bowl of soup in the winter or with a salad now that the weather is getting warmer.

One of my favorite things about this sandwich is that it looks like it took a long time to make. But because we are using pre-made pie crust from the grocery store it goes together in just minutes.

One of the things I have played around on with this sandwich is different combinations of fillings. You really can use just about any deli meat and cheese combination you like. I picked out 3 of our favorites for this blog post but the variations are endless.

Following with the pictures of the sandwiches I will give you the exact fillings I used. At the end of the blog the recipe with the amounts can be found. The only real way you can mess this up is to use too much of whatever condiment you choose, this will cause the sandwich to get very watery and the bottom crust will be soft.

The first sandwich is the good old ham and Swiss. This is a classic combo and how can you go wrong with it? For the condiment on this one I stick to the classic roots and use Dijon mustard.

Next up is one of my favorite combos sliced turkey with provolone cheese and lingonberry jam. Do be really careful with the amount of jam in this one. I usually try to just barely put some under the meat then a bit more between the meat and cheese.

And lastly sliced roast beef, sharp cheddar with a creamy horseradish sauce. Yum!!  I have to say after eating all three varieties of the sandwich this week this one was our favorite. 

Each sandwich roll serves 2 so if you are feeding more people just make more rolls. If you are alone it can be re-heated the next day for lunch. And since I knew that I wanted to make all three variations of the sandwiches this week I made 2 for dinner one night so we could play around with re-heating them the next day. We found the two ways that worked the best for us were: (1^st) heating the leftover sandwich pieces in the toaster oven (this is my favorite way to re-heat leftover pizza too) and (2^nd) to partially re-heat in the microwave then finish re-heating in a hot skillet (this crisps the bottom back up) I think that although you could obviously get these hot again in the microwave the crust would end up soggy not nice and crisp.

Now for the recipe:

For each sandwich:

1 refrigerated pie crust

1 teaspoon of the condiment of your choice (mustard, jam, horseradish sauce, etc)

½ pound of deli sliced meat

1 slice (1 oz) of cheese

Heat oven to 425°.

Allow pie crust to warm up as directed on the package.

Lay pie crust out on work surface and spread the condiment of your choice (see my suggestions in the blog post) to within ½” of the edge.

Layer the meat on next keeping it in a row about 4” wide and leaving about an 1” at each end.

Top the meat with the sliced cheese.

Bring up the sides of the crust over the filling meeting in the middle. Pinch the top together you can leave this seam very plain or flute the seam to make it pretty for display.

Roll the ends of the crust making sure to seal the sandwich roll so you don't loose your filling on the baking sheet.

Move the sandwich roll to a baking sheet covered in parchment paper. Cut 3 or 4 slits in the top to allow steam to escape.

Bake for 20 to 25 minutes until golden brown.

Allow to cool about 5 minutes.

Cut into 4 slices and serve.

Serves 2

My Current Favorite Dessert

Okay, I have to admit I am still of the opinion that there needs to be something sweet at the end of dinner. I can't help it but life is sweeter with dessert.

This recipe is currently my very favorite. And for a multitude of reasons. For one thing it can be made with things that are always in my kitchen. Secondly it is so easy I can practically make it in my sleep and in in under about 3 minutes. And the main reason it just tastes fantastic!

So yeah, this isn't really Tiramisu, it is close but not exactly. It however tastes just as good and is much easier to make.

I have no idea where I got this recipe in the first place. I recently found a scrap of paper in one of my cookbooks. I had torn this recipe out of a magazine at some point to try and then stuffed it between the pages of a cookbook as a bookmark. I had then forgotten about it. When I found it recently I decided to play around with it. I changed a couple of things from that original recipe both in the way I make it and in the ingredients list. I love how my version tastes and that is what I am sharing here.

The ingredients list is for one dish of dessert and you can scale this one up to make as many as you want. I usually make mine while I am cooking dinner and then put it in the fridge for an hour or so. Then it is ready for me when I am ready for it. If you want to make more than one dish just set out the dishes on the counter and work assembly line style. I tried making two at one time but found it was difficult to evenly divide the ingredients between the dishes. Because we are working with small quantities if you are off a bit (especially on the ratio of cookie crumbs to liquid) it is going to affect the finished dessert. So how I do it is I put the 5 cookies in the bag smash them and put them in the first dish. Then I repeat however many times I need to. Then I mix the liquid for the first dish and add it, then repeat on down the line. It really is easier to do it this way.

Super Easy (almost) Tiramisu

5 Vanilla Wafers

1 Tablespoon hot water

½ teaspoon instant Espresso powder

½ Tablespoon (1 ½ teaspoons) coffee liqueur

1 snack sized (about 3 ½ oz.) ready to serve vanilla pudding

whipped cream (to garnish)

a dash of baking cocoa powder

Place the vanilla wafers inside a zip lock sandwich bag, seal and smash them to a fine crumb. Layer these crumbs in the bottom of your dessert dish.

Combine the hot water and Espresso powder until the powder dissolves add the liqueur. Pour this mixture evenly over the crumbs.

Top with the pudding and spread evenly.

At this point you can cover the dish and store it in the refrigerator for a couple of hours.

When you are ready to serve top with whipped cream and sprinkle with cocoa powder.

Now wasn't that one of the easiest desserts you have ever made? And it looks fancy and like you spent hours creating it. Don't tell anyone how easy it was, just let them think you worked for hours.

A New Beginning

I know it has been months since I posted one recipe on this blog and then nothing. I have actually been doing a lot of thinking about what I wanted to post on here. I started to write out recipes several times but nothing seemed just right. Then it hit me I was heading down the wrong blog path. I had planned for this to be just a general cooking/recipe blog but there are so many of those out there already. I decided I wanted to narrow the focus down a bit but then I had to decide how I wanted to do that. After several months of false starts I settled on the idea of recipes for 1 or 2 people.

I know how hard it can be to find recipes for small households. Right now it is just my teen age son and I here. He goes to his dad's house every other weekend so those weekends it is just me. I know when I search for recipes it is hard to find ones that are sized for one or two people. It seems like most of them are for at least 4 or 6 people and some for even more. Unless I want to eat the same exact meal all weekend on the weekends he is gone I had to get creative. So for the last several years I have been collecting and creating recipes that make just one or two servings.

So that is going to be the focus of this blog. I will be sharing recipes for just one or two diners. Some of them will be our family favorites that I have adapted to smaller quantity. Some will be ones I have found that were already smaller but I have tweaked and put my twist on. And others will be things I have come up with along the way. I get inspired all the time for new recipes.

The recipes I post will be ones I have played around with and worked out the bugs. I think we all know that cutting a recipe down is sometimes not as easy as it sounds. Sometimes things just don't work the same with you change the amounts. Especially when we are talking about baking. You can be assured that every recipe I post on here I have actually tried. Most of them I will have made several times you will get the version that I liked the best.

It doesn't matter it you are just starting out on your own and learning to cook. Or if you have raised a family and now you are having to scale down from the large portions that growing teens need. Or maybe you have always cooked for just one or two people and you are looking for some new inspiration.

Along with recipes I hope to share with you some of my other tips and tricks for cooking so that you don't have to spend a hours in the kitchen. That is kind of my trademark. I love to make recipes that look like they took hours but are really easy.

There will also be a lot of what I call “investment cooking” those are things that you might spend a bit more time on and make a larger quantity but they are designed to be stored for really easy meals at a later time. Some of those are going in the freezer and some are going in the pantry.

So I hope you will hang around, check out my recipes and let me know what you want to eat.

Joanne's Mac 'n Cheese

For the first post on this blog I had to think about what to post. Since the first post sets the stage for the rest of the blog, I wanted to be careful about what I posted today.

Since January is here with a new year and I know a lot of you probably made New Year's resolutions to eat healthier I thought about posting something really healthy. I have a bunch of those recipes too...

Then I thought about the weather here in Oregon and how wet and cold it is at this time of year. I always crave comfort food in this weather. So I started thinking about my favorite comfort foods. Mac 'n Cheese is probably my all time favorite comfort food.

This debate comfort food vs. healthy food went on in my head for what seemed like forever. In the end comfort won out.

I have been working on my Mac 'n Cheese for years. It really doesn't come out the same twice because this is one of my “clean out the fridge” recipes.

So if I have bacon I use it, if not no problem. If I have onions they go in (I almost always have onions) same with garlic.

As for the cheese I use up what is in the cheese drawer. You know those little bits of this and that. The last slice of that package of Swiss that was purchased because someone wanted a ham cheese sandwich. The last string cheese in the package, the leftover shredded cheese that was purchased to go on the pizza last week. Take a look in your fridge, you probably have some cheese left over that should get used up.

We always have some shredded cheese in the fridge, most of the time it is the cheddar/ jack mix that is labeled “Mexican blend” We prefer it to straight cheddar and it works pretty much anywhere shredded cheddar is called for. I also always have a block of parm in the fridge and a can of the pre-grated parm in the cupboard. You can use up pretty much any cheese from Feta to Bleu to cream cheese, whatever you like and have in the fridge. Just go light on the really strong ones.

As for the pasta in my Mac 'n Cheese I seldom use just one shape. I have a canister in the cabinet that dump the ends of packages of pasta into. You know how you buy pasta in the 1 lb. package and then the recipe calls for half a pound or some odd amount. I have a plastic container that I dump those odds and ends of pasta into. Then I use that pasta for soups and casseroles. I have been doing that for so long that when I do have to use a single shape pasta my kids tell me it doesn't taste the same. LOL

Most of the time I add some Tabasco sauce of some kind (yeah, we have all the flavors in the fridge) or some mustard depending on the cheese I have on hand at that moment.

So for this week's Mac 'n Cheese I had mostly Penne pasta in the jar so that is mostly what you see in the photo. There was a small smattering of other pasta shapes in there too.

The first step is to measure out the amount of pasta you need. I use the casserole dish I am going to bake/serve my Mac 'n Cheese in. Just fill the casserole dish up about half way, that will give you just enough cooked pasta to fill the dish.

Now bring a pan of water to boil and cook the pasta, generally about 9 minutes works well with different kinds in there.

For cheese this time I had the following: a slice of Swiss, 2 slices of smoked Gouda, a slice of provolone, about ½ to ¾ cup of Italian blend shredded cheese, a chunk of Pepper-Jack, a bag of the cheddar mix (Mexican Blend) some Parmesan (block) and some Parmesan in the can. Since I had quite a bit of the Pepper-Jack I decided I didn't need the Tabasco or the mustard.

The following amounts are what I use for an 8” by 8” Pyrex baking dish. If you are using a different size casserole you will need to adjust according.

Joanne's Mac 'n Cheese

Pasta (enough to half fill the casserole dish)

2 slices bacon, chopped

-or-

¼ butter or oil

1 onion chopped

2 cloves garlic chopped

Salt and pepper to taste

¼ flour

2 ½ cups milk

Tabasco sauce (the smoked one is really good in this) or mustard to taste if desired

3 cups of cheese (shredded and/or chopped)

Dry bread crumbs and Parmesan cheese to top

Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.

Cook the pasta in a large pan of boiling water and drain.

Meanwhile:

In a mixing bowl (I use one of those 8 cup measuring bowls) cook the bacon in the microwave on high. Stir after 1 minute and continue to cook stirring after every minute until the bacon is crispy. It took about 3 minutes in my microwave.

If you aren't using bacon melt the butter in the microwave (or heat the oil) this should take about 30 seconds or so.

Add the chopped onion to the container cook at high in the microwave for about 2 minutes. Just until it softens and starts to look translucent. Add the garlic and cook 1 more minute on high.

Now take a good look at the contents of your bowl. You are going to need about ¼ of melted fat (or oil) to make a thick cheese sauce. If you don't have ¼ cup of melted bacon fat in there add a bit of oil or butter to make enough.

Now stir in the salt, pepper and flour and cook in the microwave for 30 seconds.

Add the milk stirring well.

Cook in the microwave stirring every 2 minutes until the mixture starts to thicken. It took 4 minutes in my microwave.

Add the cheese and stir. Return to the microwave for 2 more minutes to soften and partially melt the cheese. The cheese doesn't have to be completely melted though.

Add the cooked pasta and mix well.

Pour into the casserole dish, sprinkle with some dry bread crumbs and grated Parmesan cheese. You don't need much just a sprinkle over the top.

Now into the oven for 20- 25 minutes until the sauce is bubbling and top is lightly browned.