Elle's New England Kitchen

And I’m here to prove it! I was recently contacted by Katharine Schuler from U.S. Mills. She wanted to know if I would be interested in trying some of their products. One of them is Uncle Sam Cereal—we buy that pretty often at Trader Joe’s, so I said yes, please! She asked what I’d like to try, but I left it up to her—though I did add that I have four kids, so if she could tuck a few kid things in there, that would be great. My kids get so excited when a package arrives, but so bummed when there’s nothing in it that they think is cool.

Katharine packed a box so full of stuff, it was like a puzzle. I don’t think I could have ever repackaged it if I had to, hehe. But I was so surprised, and the kids were thrilled! U.S. Mills doesn’t just have cereal, they have cookies, graham crackers, 100 calorie graham cracker snack packs, hot oatmeal---if it’s for breakfast, they probably have it. Have a look around their site—I’ll bet you see something you want to try, or have already tried and had no idea it was from them.

So I had all of this cereal, and aside from eating it in a bowl, I knew I could find something else to do with it. I had a quick look at the recipes on the site, and messed around with a couple. I’m happy to report my experiments were successful!

You all know how much I love muffins—they’re an excuse to have cake for breakfast. So I went with those first. And came up with these Chunky Monkey Muffins. What’s not to love about banana and chocolate? Nothing! And adding a healthy dose of good for you Uncle Sam Cereal was perfect. Gave them a little crunch, and the kids loved them. They were like “Cereal? In a muffin? Have you gone nuts, Mom?” But I knew they’d love them. And I was happy they were getting some good grains into their systems.

Chunky Monkey Muffins
Makes 2 dozen

To print this recipe, click here!

3 1/2 cups Uncle Sam Cereal (Original)
1 cup sugar
1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1 cup whole wheat pastry flour
1 tsp salt
2 1/2 tsp baking soda
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
2 smallish bananas (1 cup total mashed banana)
2 cups milk
2 eggs
1/4 cup canola oil
1 cup chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 375.
Combine all dry ingredients in a large bowl.
Combine wet ingredients in a medium bowl.
Add the wet stuff to the dry stuff, fold in chocolate chips.
Fill muffin cups 3/4 full.
Bake for about 18 minutes, until tester comes out clean.
Cool in pans for a few minutes, then remove to a rack to cool.

Look who was hoping I’d drop a muffin…sorry, Hamilton!

A couple of days later, while looking at the bounty of cereal in the pantry, I decided it was time to try something else. The Erewhon Raisin Bran said “Ooooh! Pick me! Pick me!” So yay, it was the lucky cereal of the day. And it had a recipe on the back for Apricot Nut Bread. I didn’t have dried apricots, but I did have dried figs, and just about everything else it called for, so I got to work and came up with this Fig Nut Bread. It’s very moist and dense, almost like a gingerbread that’s studded with raisins, figs, and nuts. It very much reminded me of Morning Glory Muffins, in fact! It was totally delicious.

Fig Nut Bread
Makes one loaf

To print this recipe, click here!

1 1/2 cups Erewhon Raisin Bran
3/4 cups whole wheat pastry flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 1/2 tsp Cake Spice
1 egg
1/4 cup canola oil
1/2 cup agave or honey
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 cup applesauce
3/4 cup diced dried figs
1/2 cup boiling water
1/2 cup chopped walnuts

Heat oven to 350.
Pour the boiling water over the figs and set aside.
Grease a loaf pan.
Combine all dry ingredients in a large bowl.
In a medium bowl, blend the egg, oil, agave, vanilla and applesauce together.
Add to the dry ingredients and stir; fold in the figs (and any leftover water from the figs) and nuts.
Pour into loaf pan and bake for about 45 minutes or until tester comes out clean.

SO the moral of the story is…get out and look for these cereals and other good things from U.S. Mills. And stop looking at cereal like it’s only good for eating in a bowl with cold milk. Although that’s cool, too.

But start thinking outside the cereal box!

This was a lot of fun, and something I definitely want to keep doing. Having some ingredients put in front of me that I didn’t choose, and trying to come up with something edible was a great exercise for my brain. And I surprised myself. Not only did I come up with something edible, but it was delicious, too!

Here’s what I started with…

First, I rubbed the steak with one of our favorite rubs. (Remember, in Chopped, you get full use of the pantry!) Let that sit for a few minutes.

Trader Joe’s sells boxes of frozen, cooked Jasmine rice. I pulled one of those packets out and heated it up—I think there’s about 2 cups in each packet. Then I took about 4 or 5 of the figs and chopped those up with kitchen shears. I roughly chopped about 1/4 (maybe a little more) of the sweet and spicy pecans, and tossed both of those things into the rice. Then I threw in a couple handfuls of gorgonzola—about 1/2 cup. A little salt and pepper, about 1/4 tsp cumin, and a drizzle of balsamic vinegar were added next. This is the mixture I stuffed the sweet peppers with.

Those baked at 350 in a slightly oiled pan for about 15-20 minutes. Turn on the broiler for an extra few minutes for some color on the peppers.

Now for the gorgonzola garlic butter. Get some butter to room temp, toss in some crumbled gorgonzola. Heat a little olive oil in a pan, add a couple cloves chopped garlic and let it slowly sauté. When that’s done, spoon it into the butter, leaving the oil behind. But looking back, I could have easily added that oil to the butter as well.

Broil the steaks for about 11 to 12 minutes. Turning them over every couple of minutes, and when they’ve reached the desired doneness, remove from oven and let them sit for about 5 minutes.

Serve the steaks with the gorgonzola butter and the peppers on the side.

I’m definitely going to keep this up. It’s good to get the creative juices flowing, and leave the safety of recipes behind. Even more fun when you’re presented with ingredients you may not necessarily choose yourself.

The next time I do it, I’ll see what my husband picks up for ingredients, and then post them just like I did here. If any of you want to participate, let me know, then when you post what you came up with, I’ll link them in my post. Sound good?

Have you guys seen the new food Network show, Chopped? It’s a lot of fun! Kind like Ready, Set, Cook, I suppose. Four chefs, three courses, and one by one, they get chopped until there’s one chef left standing.

I’ve had this idea I’ve been kicking around for a few weeks. I’m going to do my own version, right here at home. Only there’s no 20 or 30 minute time limit, and there aren’t three other chefs standing next to me to make me all nervous and sweaty, hehe.

My husband chose the ingredients for me, and he did a pretty good job, I think!

We have Tri-tip Steak, sweet peppers, crumbled Gorgonzola, dried figs and sweet & spicy pecans.

I’ll play around with the stuff tonight and see what I come up with, then post the results here in a day or two.

I’d love this to become a regular thing—I just have to remind him to bring stuff home to surprise me with, hehe. I have been talking with my Twitter friends about it, and a couple of them thought it would be fun to invite anyone that would like to participate to join in. So if you’d like to join me, let me know! If there’s enough interest, maybe I’ll make it a regular thing. But no time limits—you can just take the ingredients and run with them, and post when you get around to it.

Will keep you posted!

And while they’re not the prettiest things ever, they sure taste great! I never make cupcakes because something always goes wrong. They sink in the middle, or they get too puffy and then run over the sides of the pan…I’m never going to be a cupcake queen. Ever.

But I found this recipe the other day, and it worked perfectly! The cakes had good texture, a slight spiciness from cinnamon and other good things, and they weren’t like cupcake-shaped hockey pucks. And even though they have whole wheat pastry flour, they don’t taste like wheat bread. Honest! And the kids loved them. The recipe is originally found here. I added vanilla and also switched out the individual spices for a Cake Spice blend.

The icing…oh, the icing. I was contacted by Diana at POM Wonderful a couple of weeks ago. She offered me some samples of their juice to try. Um, yeah, thanks! Love that stuff! So in thinking about different recipes to try with it, my husband thought of cupcakes.

I had originally thought about chocolate icing, but looked around and found a recipe for Pomegranate Butter Cream. I didn’t have any POM molasses, so I brought some of the regular juice to a boil, then simmered it until it was thick and syrupy—about 30 minutes or so. Then just follow the icing part of that recipe.

Whole Wheat Cupcakes

Makes 12

3/4 cup whole wheat pastry flour
1/2 cup unbleached white flour
2 tsp baking powder
3/4 tsp Cake Spice
12 tablespoons (1 1/2 stick) unsalted butter
1 cup sugar
2 eggs
1/2 cup plus 1 tablespoon milk
1 tsp vanilla

Preheat the oven to 350. Grease a muffin tin or line with paper muffin tin liners.
Whisk the flours, baking powder, and spices in a small bowl.
Cream the butter with the sugar for about 4 minutes.
Add the eggs one at a time until blended, and scrape down the sides of the bowl if you need to.
Beat in the flour mixture until just combined, and then add the milk and vanilla.
Spoon the batter into the pan and bake for 15 minutes, or until a tester comes out clean.
Remove from the pan and cool on a wire rack.

To print this recipe, click here!

And don’t forget to enter my One Year Blogiversary Giveaway—leave a comment to be entered to win an iPod Touch!

Check out the Savory Pomegranate Chicken Michelle at Life, Lightly Salted did with some of her POM Wonderful Juice!

If this keeps up, you'll soon be reading Elle's New Chicken Kitchen. That's a mouthful. All chicken, all day! A birthday? Chicken! Special holiday? Chicken!

That doesn't sound all that great, does it? No. So my next post will be cupcakes. But until then, it's chicken!! I just looked, and four of my last twelve posts have been chicken ones. This makes five.
Ah, well. Hopefully you'll all forgive my extreme chickeneyness. (Yep--that's a word. That I just made up.)

This one is courtesy of Saveur. You know how you get little bonus gifts when you subscribe? Well they sent me two little Italian cookbooks when I first subscribed a few years back. I bookmarked a lot of the recipes, and then...someone (ok, me!)...immediately lost the books. I know, right? How can you lose them so quickly? I have no clue. Guess I'm just really good that way.

So fast forward a couple of years--we were moving. I assumed I'd find them then.

No.

Oooooh. Would I find them while unpacking? *fingers crossed!*

No.

Time warp. TWO years later (last week). My daughter is moving stuff around and picks up an old cooking magazine of mine. Because, you know, we all save those, don't we? Because we really will make all of those earmarked recipes. Eventually. Someday. Maybe.

My two missing babie...I mean--books fell out of the magazine. I almost heard the angels singing. Honest! There they were, right there on the floor. It was as if they were glowing, so happy to have been found, to once again see the light of day! (But what really happened was that they fell on the floor in a patch of afternoon sunlight. But hey, I have an active imagination, ok?)

Aha!!! Now I can make that Chicken Cacciatora I've been dreaming about! After all this time! Or... I could have googled, because, you know--it's right there, online. D'oh!



Hunter's Wife's Chicken (Pollo alla Cacciatora) Serves 4

It's Hunter's Style, but it's named in honor of the hunter's wife--the cacciatora, who traditionally cooked it on the eve of the hunt. So there, Hunter!

1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
2 medium yellow onions, peeled and chopped
2 cloves garlic, peeled and minced
1 3-lb. chicken, cut into 8 pieces
1 cup dry white wine 1
1 (28-oz). can peeled diced tomatoes, undrained
1 bay leaf
1 tsp. minced fresh rosemary leaves
1/4 cup minced fresh Italian parsley
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
1 cup chicken stock (see note!)
2-3 TBSP tomato paste (see note!)

Note: I didn't need the chicken stock, in fact, I opted to thicken it up by adding some tomato paste. But I'm leaving the stock in the ingredient list in case any of you find you do need it.

Heat oil in a large pan over medium-high heat.
Add onions and cook, stirring occasionally, for about 10 minutes.
Add garlic and cook, stirring, for about 2 minutes more.
Push onions to sides of pan, then add chicken and fry, turning pieces several times to brown evenly, about 4 minutes per side.
Add wine and let it evaporate, which should take about 5 minutes.
Add undrained tomatoes to the pan.
Stir in bay leaf, rosemary, and parsley (reserving a little for garnish) and season to taste with salt and pepper.
Reduce heat to low, partially cover, and simmer, for 30 minutes, adding chicken stock gradually (if needed!)as tomato juice evaporates.
Remove chicken from pan, and stir in tomato paste, increase heat to medium and add chicken back to pan.
Simmer 10-15 more minutes until sauce is thickened.
Remove bay leaf and garnish with reserved parsley. Serve with steamed potatoes, rice, or noodles.

To print this recipe, click here!


This dish is wonderful. It makes a thick, rich sauce that coats the chicken nicely. We'll definitely have it again. My husband said it reminds him of the cacciatora he had as a kid. Slightly different, but the closest so far. This is also a very hearty dinner, and I can see why a wife would have cooked it on the eve of the hunt--its good fuel for the hunter.


Don't forget to enter my one year blogiversary giveaway! Leave a comment to win an iPod Touch!

I can't believe it--a year has passed already! One hundred and twenty-four posts...wow. I didn't know when I started if I'd have anything to talk about. I guess I did, hehe! And it was technically February 24th, but I had to iron out the details of this post with the person who funds most of the stuff I do on this blog--my husband, Billy. I kept changing my mind about what I wanted to do to celebrate, and God bless him, he's just so patient with me, hehe.



This post is going to be short, but sweet. Really sweet!



So I've planned a giveaway, and I think you guys are going to like it. I know I do. Hell, I wish I could win it! But this is to give something back to all you guys that faithfully read my blog. I appreciate each and every one of you.



So what is it???




An Apple iPod Touch, 8 GB (second generation)!!!!



YES!!!! One lucky reader will win one of these babies.



AND!!!! The contest is open to all of you, no matter where you live.



The contest will run for one month, so the winner will be chosen randomly on March 26th.



All you need to do is leave a comment here to be entered in the drawing.



If you tweet on Twitter about it, come back here with the link to your Twitter post (you must have that!!) and post that link in a second comment for an extra entry. To get the link to your Twitter post, click under your message where it says "less than _____ ago" and that will take you to a page where you can copy the url of your message.


Make sure you leave a valid email address where I can reach you! If the address doesn't work, I'll have to choose a new winner. And I don't want to have to do that.



Are there any more rules? Not really, but if you'd like to subscribe to my blog--I'm not gonna lie, that would be awesome! But it's not required. ;)




So good luck! Tell all your friends! And thanks to all of you for coming along on this one year (and more to come) adventure with me. You guys are the best!