Monthly Archives: July 2013

Slow Cooker Pigeons

You don’t have to tell me, I know, I know. I’m crazy and that it’s totally opposite of slow cooker season.
However, I needed some good old Pennsylvania cuisine, plus it’s Sunday, we’ve got a whole rainy afternoon to kill. It’s the darn monsoon gloom, July tends to get bad around these parts.

Pigeons it is!

While Mr. B and I took advantage of some new and old comedy movies, the pigeons were simmering and steaming away in the slow cooker. Gosh, y’all! The house smelled simply amazing and had us both reminiscing of our Sunday dinners at home.

We vegged as the heavenly familiar aromas just wafted through the apartment and then finally at 5 on the dot, we indulged! These pigeons were packed with delicious flavor. Heavy on the pepper, garlic, onion, green peppers, and of course cabbage leaves.

Slow Cooker Pigeons

Slightly adapted from Pioneering Today

Ingredients:

1 small cabbage head

1/2 cup uncooked Korean rice

1 egg, beaten

1/4 cup milk

1/4 cup onion, minced

1 clove garlic, minced

1 small green pepper, chopped

1 tsp. salt

2 tsp. pepper

1 lb. lean ground beef or ground turkey

Sauce

1 15 ounce can Newmans Own marinara sauce

2 Tbs. brown sugar

2 tsp. Worcestershire sauce

Directions:

Boil a pot of water and add cabbage head, steam for 3 minutes and drain.

Combine the uncooked rice, egg, milk, onion, garlic, green pepper, beef, salt, and seasonings in large bowl. Place meat mixture in center of cabbage leaf and roll, tucking and folding all ends. Place seam side down in slow cooker.

Mix ingredients for sauce together and pour over rolls. Cook on low 8 hours in slow cooker.

Backpackbees

Just One

Can you ever just have one cookie? Does one cookie ever suffice? Nope. Not in my book. You at least need two. It’s got to be a pair, equal, one for each hand. Right? Right!

It’s Tuesday night, I’ve had a lot on my mind these past few days. Korea has a major storm set to blow in over the next few days from China.

What to do?

What to do?

Bake cookies!

I needed something mindless, stress free, and relaxing. Peanut-butter oatmeal cookies were just what was in order. We’re a huge fan of oatmeal cookies and peanut-butter part was just a bonus.

I know when my grandfather reads this blog post he will crave oatmeal cookies and pester my grandmother to bake him some. Oatmeal cookies are his favorite cookies. I guess the apple doesn’t fall to far from the tree. There is nothing quite like a fresh batch of baked cookies and a tall glass of milk to wash it all down.

I remember baking cookies various times throughout my life. The best memories of course were licking the cookie dough from the spoon afterwards. Hopefully there weren’t any raw eggs in those batches…uh oh spaghettio.

Honestly, I wish I would have paid more attention to baking and cooking from my grandparents when I was young. They are such awesome resources and have so much culinary experience. As I’ve grown up I’ve realized that I really enjoy learning to cook and bake new things. I always look forward to cooking and learning something new when im home visiting them. i always leave excited, eager to try what I learned at home with Mr. B. Sometimes I even ponder culinary school to learn real techniques and more kitchen confidence when venturing way outside of the normal weeknight spaghetti or chicken dish. What about you? Have you ever given culinary school a thought? Perhaps someday?

Back to cookie baking. I’ve included the recipe below adapted from various peanut-butter oatmeal recipes just for you.

Enjoy!

Peanut-butter Oatmeal Cookies

Ingredients:

1/3 cup natural, chunky, unsalted peanut-butter
1/3 cup almond milk, soy milk, or regular milk
2/3 cup sugar
1 Tbsp butter
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 cup oats
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup whole wheat flour
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp baking soda

Directions:

Preheat oven to 375 Degrees or 190 Celsius.

Mix in a mixing bowl the sugar, milk, peanut-butter, butter, and vanilla extract until everything smooth.

In separate bowl, mix both flours well, oatmeal, baking soda and salt.
Pour both separated mixes together. The wet and the dry, and mix until the ingredients are just mixed enough together.

Next drop cookie dough onto cookie sheet, gently flatten cookie tops with a fork to bake evenly.

Bake for 12 minutes, or until cookies are set.

Now…while the cookies bake, we tackle the dishes….

Backpackbees

Rainy With A Good Chance Of Meatloaf

Meatloaf… It’s one of those foods that you either absolutely love, or absolutely loath. There isn’t much argument in the middle. We just so happen to love the stuff! How about you? What are your feelings on meatloaf?

It’s Sunday, it’s been pouring rain for days. Actually, it’s been every day since we landed back in Korea from our world tour over the 4th.

I don’t know about you, but days and days of rain eventually get to me. I start craving comforting things. I start going into a sluggish, lounge around mood. Sometimes a craving happens and you just gotta roll with it. Sometimes it’s weird, sometimes it ends up being FABULOUS! Like the meatloaf I’m going to share with you all.

A little background on our meatloaf situation. We have only ventured away from Mr. B’s mom’s meatloaf recipe ONE time during our married life. BIG MISTAKE! It was icky, bland, gross. There are many other words I could go on using, but I think you get the point. Please also note this attempt was about three years ago or so. I guess you can say we were scarred. We continued to stick to the family meatloaf recipe ever since. Well, that is until now…thank you Eatliverun!

Kicked Up Turkey Meatloaf
(Taken and slightly adapted from Eatrunlive)

serves 6

Ingredients:

1 lb lean ground turkey

1 cup cooked black or green lentils (Don’t fear the lentils)

1 large carrot, diced

1 large onion, diced

2 cloves garlic, minced

2 cups mushrooms, chopped

1 1/2 tsp worcestershire sauce

1/4 cup ketchup

1 tsp salt

1/2 T olive oil

1/4th tsp black pepper

3/4 cup panko breadcrumbs

1/3 cup milk

1 egg, slightly beaten

Glaze:

2 T ketchup

2 pads of butter

Directions:

Preheat oven to 400.

Heat the olive oil in a large skillet over medium high heat. Add the diced onions and saute for about six minutes, until soft and translucent. Add the carrot and garlic and cook for three minutes. Add the chopped mushroom and cook for another five minutes or so, until the mushroom has turned soft and all the veggies are nice and juicy.

Remove from heat and transfer to a large bowl. Add the cooked lentils, salt, pepper, worcestershire sauce and ketchup and mix well.

In a small bowl, combine the milk and panko bread crumbs. Let sit for three minutes so the breadcrumbs can absorb a little of the milk. Add to veggie mixture.

Add ground turkey and beaten egg and mix well. It’s easiest here to use your hands. Transfer to a greased loaf pan and press down to smooth top.

Spread the two pads of butter on the meatloaf top. Make a nice zigzag line of ketchup on top of the meatloaf. Cover with foil. Pop into the oven and Bake for 55 minutes or until a meat thermometer reads 165 degrees. We typically remove the foil off the top and then pop back into the oven for 15 more minutes. Enjoy!

Backpackbees

Around The World In One Week

 

Okay, maybe it wasn’t around the world…but it truly felt like it! It ended up that we went back to the states for a wonderful whirlwind of the fourth of july week. We tackled DC, PA, 3 full days of work, a best friends wedding, family, and a scuba diving certification. I think its safe to say, been there, done that, got the tee-shirt. LOL! We still wouldn’t have traded the time for anything in the world.

How blessed am I? I got to see two of my childhood best friends in one week! Cassie and Josh drove up from North Carolina and toured DC with me for three days. Don’t worry, I’ve got some photos to share of our adventures from the DC duck tour, and yummy sweet treat to ourselves at DC cupcake. Yep, we were the crazies that stood in the rain, but I’m telling you….Mmmm…the carrot cake cupcake was absolutely divine! We then went to Arlington cemetery to visit the tomb of the unknown soldier, so surreal!

After we said so long to my best friend and her husband, we headed North for our hometown in Pennsylvania. My other best friend, who you might remember from her visit here with us in Korea, was getting married. The wedding was perfect! Everything was so simple but elegant. You are going to love this… the reception was at a small local airport, inside of a hanger. It gets better folks, whoopie-pie wedding cake tower! If you are not familiar with a whoopie-pie… first, I’m so sorry you have been deprived this long, second, google the word and drool! The reception also featured stations from Danville, PA (where the reception location was), Seattle (where the groom is from), and Istanbul, Turkey (where the honeymoon destination is). These stations consisted of sliders, salmon, seafood dip, pidgeon and perogies, hummus, chicken kabob, and the list just keeps going on. It was one of the best memories of my life for my best friend and her husband. As we speak, the newlyweds are relaxing in each others company somewhere in Turkey. Gosh, I cannot wait until they get back so I can get the lowdown on the trip!

So how was your fourth of July? Did you travel far? See fireworks? Maybe it was more low-key and all about grilling and chilling? Whatever the case, I hope that it was a great one and I hope to hear about it from you all.

Backpackbees