Baked Salisbury Steak

When you have a whole mess of wild mushrooms on your hands, you have to use them in as delicious a recipe as possible! Salisbury steak is "the" recipe i request when i go home to visit my mom. She doesn't cook a ton these days, leaving the delicious fish preparation to Bud, my daddy #2 - but when i can convince her to cook up salisbury steaks I am never disapointed!

One problem i've had with enjoying this favorite recipe of hers, is that i really can't digest beef well. I should say, i can't digest 'conventionally grown' beef at all. I've recently begun dabbling in the eating of grass fed beef with pretty positive results (though i still get a tummy ache the next morning if i over do it) and definitely did not decline the several pounds of naturally grown beef mom got from our neighbor. Can i just say that the beef we got from the DuVal family is hands down the most delicious beef i've ever tasted, and i've only had the hamburger! Lean, bright red, flavorful. Yum.  Anyway, back to the recipe:

Mom bakes her salisbury steaks and generally uses golden mushroom soup plus a heap of fresh veggies. I made the mushroom soup from scratch, but followed her technique. It wasn't as gooey amazing as hers, since i failed to thicken my sauce until it was a bit late, but the flavor was devine and we had to try very hard not to lick the entire cookie sheet while it was still hot. This is NOT a greasy, pan fried beef dish, nor is this the salisbury steak found in frozen TV dinners. Shove in as many fresh veggies as you like, use bread, breadcrumbs or oats and enjoy this meal with some veggies and maybe a potato. You will not be disapointed.

Salisbury Steak

• 1 pound grass fed beef hamburger
• 1-2 onions, finely diced
• 1-5 garlic cloves, finely diced
• Optional green pepper, hot pepper, roasted pepper etc
• 1/2 cup chopped mushrooms
• 1/2 cup oats
• 1 egg
• salt, pepper, seasonings to taste 

for the sauce:

• A whole mess of mushrooms, chopped (i used wild porcinis)
• diced garlic
• pinch mustard powder
• pinch dried rosemary
• pinch dried sage
• salt and pepper
• rich chicken, turkey, veggie or beef stock- enough to fill the pan
• splash cornstarch/cold water slurry

In a large bowl combine the chopped veggies, oats, egg and beef etc and squish around with your hands until well combined. You may wish to add a sprinkling of flour to help it stick together. Form mixture into little patties and arrange on a cookie sheet. Bake at 350 for about 30 minutes.

Meanwhile, add all the chopped mushrooms and some butter into a pan with the herbs and spices. Add a pinch of flour and mix well. Cover with stock and bring to a rigorous boil. Boil for a smidge then reduce heat and simmer, uncovered until sauce has reduced by at least a third. Add the cornstarch slurry, stir and reduce heat to low. Pour some of the sauce over the patties and return to the oven for 5-10 more minutes. Serve topped with more sauce along side with maybe some peas and a potato. Be sure you make enough sauce to slather on everything, including a spoon in your mouth. It's so good! 

My salisbury steaks were a definite success, but i think i'll still clamour at mom to make her version.

Do you have a special 'mommy made' recipe you beg for when you see her?

Wild Salmon/ Wild Mushrooms: Wild Feast!

Back in Action! I found a spare power cord in the barn and i'm hankering to post this delicious salmon recipe.

I know, i know: butter on salmon? Is that really necessary? NO! But it's DELICIOUS!
My fish cooking skills generally rely on a grill. As we are without a grill in our apartment, i had to be creative. Luckily, my husband's friend who took him shrooming and fishing is also a chef and had some great advice: Really Hot. Really Fast. I can do that! Unlike some fish, salmon is great rare or medium rare. I cooked this batch a little longer than i needed to, but honestly: i like salmon either seared and rare, or grilled and cooked through. So, i went for the cooked through. Not OVER cooked, mind you. I think i cooked this sucker on 475 for about 10 minutes. That's pretty quick. I didn't overly season it either: just some basil, cayenne, rosemary and garlic, plus that touch of butter for extra wow-factor. The edges got crispy, the middle was flakey and soft and the whole thing was moist as all get out. This was definitely the absolutely, most delicious salmon I have ever eaten in my entire life. I am not exaggerating. At all.

I served our fillets with a half of steamed Romanesco cauliflower and of course some more delicious mushroom gravy.

Wild Mushroom & Onion Gravy:

• 2 onions, halved and sliced
• 1 cup or so chopped mushrooms, preferably fresh picked wild shrooms!
• Pinch flour
• Salt, Pepper, herbs to taste
• White wine, or chicken/fish/veggie stock/milk
• Olive oil

Saute the onions in the olive oil with fresh or dried herbs until onions begin to turn clear. Add the pinch of flour and stir well, covering with about 1 cup of liquid. I used white wine and a splash of water and lemon juice: be creative with what you have on hand! Bring gravy to a simmer while stirring until it begins to thicken a bit. Add mushrooms and cook until they're soft. This gravy would be great over any meat or veggie dish.

Sigh, i wish i was eating this again right now. The hubs got the leftovers, lucky sot.

What's your favorite method for cooking salmon? Have you ever had super fresh salmon, and could you tell the flavor difference?

Baked Chicken with Mushrooms

I adapted this meal from those "minute steaks" i cooked back in September. Instead of battering and frying tenderized beef steaks, i skinned and de-fatted a whole chicken, cut apart its thighs and breasts and prepared them for some delicious pan and oven action.

As an aside: i very, very rarely buy chicken already split up into breasts or thighs, etc unless they're majorly 'reduced for quick sale' and the chicken is 'all natural.' I'd really prefer to get all my chicken from local farmers, but our budget isn't quite that robust i'm very sad to say. SO i get foster farms natural chicken from California at a local market that sells it for $1 a pound, in a whole chicken. I feel that buying a whole chicken is at least one step i can take: less packaging, less processing, more nutrition included and you can make stock from the bones when you're done. 

My husband had called ahead with news of his mushroom find, but he didn't arrive home until almost 8 pm! That's pretty darned late to just be getting something in the oven. But i relaxed, rolled with the punches, and we both enjoyed a super delicious meal.

De-fatted and boned chicken breasts and thighs, slathered in Celtic salt, rosemary, basil, dried cayenne and pepper.

Washed and split leeks ready to be the bed of a delicious chicken bake. I've decided all roasted and baked chickens need to lay on a bed of leeks.

First i slathered the chicken in herbs and spices and pan fried them in a tiny bit of coconut oil until browned on each side and cooked through about halfway. I moved the chicken over to the leek bed and started sauteing onions and garlic. Once soft, i sifted in a bit of flour, stirred and covered in some turkey stock, bringing to a simmer. Normally, i would have put the shrooms in right away until they were soft, poured them over the chicken and popped it all into a 400 degree oven stat. BUT the mushrooms didn't arrive for quite some time, so i paced around the house wondering how the heck i'd get to sleep after eating dinner around 8:30 or so. Major Grrrrr fest.

The mushrooms finally came! I added them to the gravy and cooked until soft, topped the chicken and in the oven it went. After about 15-30 minutes (i cut it short due to starvation and bed time) the chicken was done to my liking and we ate a scrumpteoous meal, with a side of sauteed collards (with smoked paprika and a smidge of bacon).

At some point i'll have a well lit kitchen so that i can take actually QUALITY photographs. Sigh.

I served only the breasts and returned the thighs to the turned off oven to keep cooking a bit before i put them away as leftovers, just to be sure they got cooked through.

Super delicious, even if it was a little later than i'd like to eat. This mushroomy gravey would be awesome on ANY kind of meat, even just more veggies. I highly recommend this technique and encourage you to try it with different meats to see how it tastes.

The Dude Provides

For those of you who follow me on Facebook, you already know that my husband and I had a great weekend at the dinner table. Others of you who are out of the loop may remember that my husband has had a few attempted fishing trips that didn't pan out so well lately: well he finally came through for me. And with more than just fish!

Isn't the fur-baby cute, being all interested? No mushrooms for her, but plenty for us! Porcini and Chanterelle mushrooms straight out of the Oregon coastal forest. I've always liked mushrooms, but i've also always thought them rather bland, nice to add to chicken dishes but not overly full of their own flavor. Man was i ever wrong! These babies were sweet, firmly textured, magical bites of yum both when raw and cooked! I'll be treating you with the dinners i whipped together from this bounty for the next few days. I'm pretty sure (if you like mushrooms or salmon at all) that you'll be salivating with jealousy. ;)

The hubs didn't go without his fish fix, though. He was fishing with a buddy, so only brought home half his catch, but it was definitely more than enough! He was fishing in the tidewater, and a local seal eyed his catch as he pulled it in, but he was victorious and finally provided fresh salmon flesh to this family, woo hoo!   Did i mention how fresh mushrooms tasted way more delicious than 'other' mushrooms? Well, I can tell you that freshly caught salmon, right out of the briney sea is just about the most delicious thing a person can ever eat. I'm not even overly in love with salmon, generally - and only like it when it's been prepared by myself or my step dad (as a general rule). This fish was amazing. A. MAZE. ING. And it's still feeding us 3 days later.

Let's hear it for the fisherman! Finally!

Review: Buitoni Pasta

Darn Tasty! 

I was graced with a coupon to try out Buitoni pasta recently, and i have nothing bad to say about it. The ingredients were fairly close to natural food, for a packaged item. The filling was decadent but delicious. The caloric value was a bit high, but a good amount to split with a hungry husband. The pasta wasn't quite as filling as it was fattening, but still a fun weeknight treat, and easy to prepare. The pasta would have been highlighted better if i had topped it with simple butter or perhaps garlic infused olive oil, but i like tomato sauce so i made some of that and served the hubby with mostly pasta and a little sauce, me with mostly sauce and a little pasta.

I think i will take this pasta as inspiration for my next homemade ravioli recipe: mushrooms, basil and ricotta, with perhaps some homemade mozzerella and homegrown garlic? Sounds good to me! Can't wait to have fresh basil growing again - it's on its way!